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March 22, 2023$60M state, SolutionHealth deal for new 125-bed mental health hospital
Mar. 20—CONCORD — The state has reached an agreement with the owners of the Elliot Hospital in Manchester to operate a new 125-bed behavioral health hospital in southern New Hampshire.
State officials will ask the Executive Council Wednesday to give final approval to the plan, which would use $15 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act grants toward a $60 million facility to open in 2024.
Under the agreement, SolutionHealth will commit to operate the facility, which will address a shortage of behavioral health beds in the state, for at least 10 years.
Officials had announced this plan last September, but it took until now to complete the 112-page agreement that the Executive Council will take up.
Last year, HCA Healthcare and Portsmouth Regional Hospital announced plans to build a mental health hospital in Epping, but an agreement with the state fell through.
The state purchased Hampstead Hospital last year and has converted the complex into one that provides mental health treatment to juveniles.
Under the SolutionHealth agreement, the new hospital must have at least 70% occupancy during the first two years and at least 80% the remaining eight years.
If those benchmarks are not reached, SolutionHealth would have to agree to extend its 10-year commitment.
Gov. Chris Sununu had been sounding the alarm for the past two years about the need to increase mental health treatment capacity.
About 30 adults and children currently are staying in hospital emergency rooms while waiting for a mental health treatment bed to become available in New Hampshire.
Hospitals sued the state in state and federal courts over this emergency room boarding policy. A federal judge ordered the state to come up with a timetable for an end to the use of hospital emergency rooms.
The state had offered $200,000 per treatment bed for hospitals to open mental health wings, but not enough were interested.
State officials also will ask the Executive Council on Wednesday to endorse a plan to use $1 million in federal grants on renovations to the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, so that it can open a five-bed unit for mental health patients.
In return, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital officials have agreed to a six-year commitment.
In the two-year state budget proposed last month, Sununu asked the Legislature to change state law and require that all acute-care hospitals open their own mental health units.
The New Hampshire Hospital Association has opposed the mandate and urged lawmakers to reject it.
The new Solution Health hospital would have 72 beds reserved for adults with mental health issues, 24 psychiatric beds for children and 24 beds for geriatric patients.
The $15 million federal grant for the project cannot be spent on real estate or on permitting fees for the hospital.
The chronic workforce shortage has made this problem worse.
The state-run New Hampshire Hospital in Concord has been unable to open two of its wings because of a lack of staff.
