When Unity Health of Searcy opened its Jacksonville hospital last month, its behavioral health unit for adults quickly became full.
“Since the day we opened, we have had as many patients as our staffing levels would allow,” Kevin Burton, the administrator of Unity Health-Jacksonville, said via email. “As we have hired more staff, our numbers have steadily increased.”
The hospital has a 24-bed inpatient behavioral health unit for adults.
Since the start of the pandemic, the mental health crisis in Arkansas has become worse, mental health experts told Arkansas Business.
“Not only are we seeing new disorders that have come about since the pandemic, we have seen a large increase in anxiety and depression,” Burton said. “However, one thing that has seen a small positive change is that people are starting to realize that it is OK to feel what they feel, and more importantly, it is OK to seek help for it.”
Burton said that in the buildup to the opening of the hospital, community leaders told Unity Health that behavioral health was a priority for the city. “The Air Force Base specifically brought this up over and over again: We need help on the mental health side,” he told Arkansas Business in February.
Other providers are working to respond to the crisis as the U.S. behavioral health market is projected to grow from $79.7 billion in 2022 to $105 billion by 2029, according to Fortune Business Insights, a global market research firm based in India. COVID caused a higher-than-anticipated demand in behavioral health services across the country compared with pre-pandemic levels, the report said.
“There’s always more demand for mental health services than there are appointments available,” said Dr. Laura Dunn, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Psychiatric Research Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
The stigma surrounding mental health treatment also is decreasing, fueling the demand for services, she said.
UAMS and other providers are working to integrate behavioral health into primary care clinics. “We definitely need more care options for children and adolescents,” Dunn said.
She said UAMS is hoping to develop at least one additional residency in northwest Arkansas for psychiatry, but it depends on a number of factors, including funding, and such an effort takes years to get off the ground.
Also providing treatment for teenagers and young adults for substance abuse is a priority for UAMS, she said.
In the meantime, UAMS has AR ConnectNow, a free virtual program that offers all Arkansans help with mental health issues, from stress and depression to substance abuse.
Others in health care say there aren’t enough providers to treat the estimated 20% of Arkansans who have a mental illness. Arkansas has therapy deserts “where we don’t have enough therapists in the rural areas to see people, and that includes the hospitals,” said Buster Lackey, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Arkansas, which is part of NAMI of Arlington, Virginia.
Arkansas also doesn’t have a true mental health emergency room “where people can go, have one-point access, and if they need to, see psychiatrists or counselors and have everything there,” Lackey said.
Meanwhile, an Arkansas legislative task force continues to study ways to improve mental health in Arkansas.
“When we started it last session, we had a lot of people in jails and in prison that really probably needed to be somewhere else getting help,” said Rep. DeAnn Vaught, R-Horatio (Sevier County), who was a sponsor of the bill to create the task force. “And we have an opioid crisis in the state. So we’re trying to figure out better ways to help. … A lot of that would be people getting the mental or behavioral health services that they need.”
Sign up for Daily E-news
