DECATUR, ILL. (WAND) - Recent cuts at HSHS St. Mary's have left some community members questioning where to turn for certain services. With behavioral health services discontinued, some are concerned about getting the help they need.
"With the closure of St. Mary's, we're losing 56 beds of inpatient behavioral health," said Mary Garrison, president and CEO of Heritage Behavioral Health Services.
Due to the closure of behavioral services at St. Mary's, Heritage Behavioral Health Center is looking to pick up some of the slack by expanding and creating possible services.
"We're looking at alternatives. Maybe there's a way we can provide a space that if they're not at acute stage, that we can help support them. If they do need to have inpatient beds, how we can successfully get them placements outside of the area," said Garrison.
Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski visited Heritage to address recent closures and discuss potential next steps. She hopes to take these issues back to Washington D.C. where she can continue to advocate for solutions.
"To making sure that as OBGYN services and behavioral health services might transition to other facilities. How that transition might be going, when it finally does get approved," said Budzinski.
Garrison added how Heritage, St. Mary's and other entities are working to ensure behavioral health services remain available to the surrounding area.
"Believe that we need to support individuals' behavioral health needs. Heritage is here to do that in any way possible," said Garrison.
"What I can be doing to address some of the challenges that we're seeing right here in Decatur. These are again not unique challenges to Decatur when we're talking about staffing shortages and unique access issues that rural folks have in reaching health care," said Budzinski.
However, new services will not be as extensive such as the inpatient care that was offered at St. Mary's. Despite this, Heritage hopes to reassure the community that steps are being made to help resolve the effects of the recent closures.
