New York-Presbyterian is resurrecting more than two dozen hospital beds for psychiatric patients at its hospitals in Upper Manhattan, years after it reduced behavioral health capacity during the pandemic.
The health system filed plans Wednesday to transfer three inpatient behavioral health beds from Allen Hospital to its neighboring Columbia University Medical Center as it revamps a psych unit that has been closed since the pandemic. The transfer is part of a longer-term effort to bring back mental health beds at Allen Hospital that the health system shuttered to make space for Covid-19 patients in 2020.
The plan, which will cost more than $40 million, is expected to restore 24 inpatient behavioral health beds at Allen Hospital, according to an application to the Department of Health earlier this year. New York-Presbyterian will operate 52 beds between Allen Hospital and Columbia Medical Center once the project is complete.
The restored unit at Allen Hospital will ease wait times and make more space for patients diagnosed with severe mental illnesses such as major depression, bipolar disorder and other psychiatric conditions, the application says. The 9,000-square-foot unit will include 12 private rooms and six semi-private rooms.
Tony Chau, a spokesman for New York-Presbyterian, said that the project is part of the health system’s ongoing effort to provide advanced mental health care, noting that the health system has 500 inpatient behavioral health beds across its 10 hospital campuses.
New York-Presbyterian announced plans to shutter its psych unit in 2018 to make space for more lucrative labor and delivery beds and surgical space. The decision drew ire from health care workers and community members who said the move would erode mental health care in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx. The beds did not officially close until the pandemic, when Allen Hospital’s psych unit quickly became a critical care department for patients with Covid-19 in the spring of 2020.
New York-Presbyterian is reopening beds due to skyrocketing demand for mental health services, the health system said in its application. Columbia University Irving Medical Center has a psychiatric emergency room that admits roughly 200 behavioral health patients each month – more than its own inpatient psych unit, which currently has 25 beds, can handle, according to plans submitted to the Health Department.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has pushed for the reopening of inpatient psych beds in her $1 billion mental health plan, but those efforts have been slow to progress. Many hospitals that shut down psych beds during the pandemic turned them into medical-surgical or critical care beds – often bigger revenue drivers. Hospitals’ hesitancy to reopen less lucrative psych beds combined with a seldom-enforced fining system has led to a lagging restoration of behavioral health beds statewide.
New York-Presbyterian expects that its psych unit revamp at Allen Hospital will be complete in April, according to its application.
