Conn. Children’s opens state’s first joint medical-psychiatric unit
HARTFORD — Connecticut Children’s, one of the state’s two major hospitals for youth, cut the ribbon Tuesday on the hospital’s first unit designed to address kids’ medical and psychiatric needs simultaneously.
The new 12-bed unit, located in a renovated space on the hospital’s Hartford campus, will treat children who otherwise may have spent weeks undergoing medical treatment before receiving needed mental health care.
“This is unique,” said Dr. Juan Salazar, physician-in-chief at Connecticut Children’s. “Because it not only addresses the mental health issues, which are so pervasive in our children, but also the physical needs: a kid with diabetes, a kid with eating disorder, a kid with inflammatory bowel disease who needs mental health at the same time and can’t be in a unit that doesn’t provide that.”
The opening of the new unit, which will begin seeing patients next week, comes amid an ongoing crisis in kids mental health, spurred in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the state’s mental health system for children, providers describe increased depression and anxiety, driving high demand for services.
The new unit at Connecticut Children’s was funded in part with state money, as part of a legislative push in recent years to address mental health needs, as well as through corporate donations.
Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, held at the site of the new unit, was led by ESPN anchor Elle Duncan and attended by numerous state officials,
including Gov. Ned Lamont, who spoke of the mental health disruptions of the COVID era, and called the new facility “extraordinary.”
Sen. Saud Anwar, DSouth Windsor, one of the top legislators behind a package of kids mental health legislation passed in 2022, said he was highly gratified to see the Connecticut Children’s unit open.
“This was a labor of love, and when you see this labor of love in a reality, it is just heartwarming,” Anwar said. “These are the moments that really make public life worth it.”
The ceremony also included testimony from the mother of a child with acute mental health needs whose child was initially treated at Connecticut Children’s, but who eventually had to move out of state to find the necessary care.
“The benefits of this unit will go far beyond the number of beds,” she said.
Connecticut Children’s CEO James Shmerling said the idea for the joint medical-psychiatric unit came from a hospital in Rhode Island that had implemented a similar model successfully.
Absent this kind of unit, Schmerling said, a child with both medical and mental health needs might require several weeks in the hospital to be stabilized physically, then wait several weeks more to be transferred to a psychiatric facility, prolonging necessary care.
“That’s not good for the child, it’s not good for the health system, it’s not good for the families,” Shmerling said. “We realized the need to do something different and create a different model.”