Hospital closures to affect behavioral health services in the Valley

WARREN, Ohio (WKBN) – The psychiatric unit at Warren’s Trumbull Regional Medical Center has 35 beds, 19 for adults and 16 for geriatric patients. With last week’s announcement that the hospital is closing , all the beds are gone.

Katie Cretella of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board says they contract with Coleman Health Services which screens patients at Trumbull Regional to determine if hospitalization is necessary.

Now that Trumbull Regional is closing, the process of transferring screenings to Warren’s St. Joseph Hospital has started.

“It’s definitely not ideal for the directors at Coleman to try and get an entire staff trained and getting access to St. Joe’s records and being able to document within their medical system,” said Cretella.

St. Joseph Hospital does not have a psychiatric ward. The closest hospital would be Mercy Health in Youngstown.

“Any patient that was not able to be at Trumbull Regional Medical Center, they’ve always been referred to Mercy and outside hospitals and we could continue that process,” Cretalla said.

There have been occasions when Trumbull Regional and Mercy Health’s Psychiatric Wards were full.

“This is not a new process for us. Anytime we don’t have beds and there is a need for psychiatric services, we could refer outside,” Cretella said.

But now more psychiatric patients will be moved out of town, sometimes as far as Cleveland and Akron.

“It’s not ideal to send our psychiatric population outside of this area when we’re looking at if people don’t have access to transportation, family members who don’t have access to transportation,” she said.

There is currently no plan to replace the Trumbull Regional psychiatric ward. They just may have to do without — and behavioral health in the Mahoning Valley could suffer.

Screeners from Colman Health are still assessing potential psychiatric patients at Trumbull Regional — but only if they walk into the emergency room.

Ambulance crews, however, can not bring psychiatric patients to Trumbull. They will go to St. Joe’s.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKBN.com.