KC psychiatric hospital is ‘in disrepair.’ MO lawmakers want to spend $300M to replace it

In the heart of Kansas City’s Hospital Hill neighborhood sits a nearly 20-year-old mental health hospital that officials say is in dire need of repair.

The state-owned 115-bed hospital Center for Behavioral Health, previously called Western Missouri Mental Health Center, opened at its current facility in 2004. The state operates 65 of the beds and houses patients who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial. University Health leases the other half of the building and operates the remaining 50 beds.

“It is in terrible disrepair. I toured it a few weeks ago and, I mean, we should not have humans living there. Just the lack of sunlight, I can’t even describe it,” state Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Democrat, told The Star.

As part of the state’s massive $50 billion budget, Missouri lawmakers this year approved $300 million to build a new psychiatric hospital near the current site and expand its capacity to provide in-patient psychiatric care in the western half of the state. Republican Gov. Mike Parson did not request the funding, which was added relatively late in the budget process, and has not yet signed off on the proposal.

While details on the new hospital are limited, the funding approved by lawmakers comes as demand for in-patient care has increased in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. And a shortage of beds has forced some patients to languish in jails across the state when they should be in a mental health hospital.

“They have folks that right now need this kind of treatment, that are sitting in county jails across the state, that, frankly, can’t get the treatment they need to get them to the point where they can properly represent themselves in trial,” said Charlie Shields, president of University Health.

Michael Mansur, a spokesperson for Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, said that he didn’t have statewide numbers, but confirmed that there are patients who are stuck in jail or in other hospitals who would be in a mental facility if there were enough beds.

“This is definitely a step in the right direction to get this larger facility,” he said.

The new facility, if the funding is approved, would have 100 beds that the state will operate for long-term care, and 100 beds that University Health will operate. Shields said University Health’s portion of the center will have departments to deal with different levels of acuity and necessary care.

It will also include an emergency department where anyone in crisis can come to receive care.

Brent McGinty, the CEO and president of the Missouri Behavioral Health Council, said he hopes the new facility will be an integrated model between the in-patient psychiatric hospital and out-patient behavioral health care.

“There is always a need for an in-patient bed at times for individuals who are in such crisis or in such throes of their illness or with suicidal ideation, that they need to get stabilized in the in-patient bed,” he said.

McGinty said that over the years the state has cut its state-operated beds for psychiatric hospitals because of federal limitations on Medicaid, which does not reimburse large in-patient psychiatric hospitals. There are six state-operated adult inpatient facilities and one children’s psychiatric hospital across the state, according to the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

“Ever since we’ve been struggling to kind of catch up to that capacity need on the private side,” he said.

The current hospital is expected to continue operating while the new facility is built nearby. Keith King, a spokesperson for University Health, said the new building is expected to be built somewhere in the UMKC Health Sciences District.

King said there was no current timeline for construction of the new facility and that it would be left up to the state.

While University Health operates 50 beds, not all are usable. There are plumbing and leaking issues due to the dated facility, and some rooms are meant to house two people but most people are not fit to share rooms.

“We’re typically down in the high 30s,” Shields said.

State Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican who chairs the Senate’s budget committee, said officials considered several different options for the new facility, including building it in Monett in Southwestern Missouri. But Kansas City ultimately “made sense” because of its space and large population, he said.

“These beds are needed. And these facilities are needed and these professionals are needed,” Hough said. “I think we would be doing a disservice if we didn’t do this.”

McGinty, with the Missouri Behavioral Health Council, said the new, revamped facility is needed in Kansas City because the city is an economic driver of the state.

“I think it’ll put Kansas City on the leading edge of mental health care in the country,” he said. “Without a healthy workforce, and that includes a healthy mental health workforce, you can’t really drive that economic engine quite as well.”

State sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, said the new facility project is a unique opportunity to help provide more resources for patients that need it.

“In just the way that it’s designed, it poses some security threats to the people who staff that ward, so to completely reimagine what mental healthcare can look like, is really exciting,” she said.