North Dakota’s mental health crisis is taking a severe toll, with suicide and drug overdose deaths now exceeding highway fatalities. In 2020, North Dakota lost 146 people to suicide and 109 to drug overdoses compared to 100 highway fatalities. The crisis has been exacerbated by a persistent shortage of psychiatric treatment capacity: the North Dakota State Hospital reduced capacity from 100 beds to 75 due to the coronavirus pandemic, while Red River Behavioral Health, a 70-bed psychiatric hospital in Grand Forks, closed due to pandemic-related bankruptcy. Since that closure, Altru Health System with 23 psychiatric beds has turned away more than 500 patient referrals annually, with patients boarding in emergency departments for days waiting for treatment beds.
The Legislature’s interim Acute Psychiatric Treatment Committee has studied the state’s behavioral health service needs, with the State Hospital board recommending construction of a new state hospital with an estimated cost of $150 million to $160 million. Western North Dakota currently has no psychiatric beds, requiring patients to travel to hospitals in Minot, Bismarck, Jamestown, Fargo, or Billings, Montana. The State Hospital has been operating at between 95% and 105% of capacity, with 41% of admissions coming from patients transferred by other hospitals whose condition hasn’t improved or who refused treatment, while jails account for 12% of admissions.
System Gaps and Ongoing Initiatives
North Dakota’s behavioral health system has historically invested most resources in institutional services rather than prevention and community-based services, according to analysis by Human Services Research Institute. Prairie St. John’s in Fargo, with 110 inpatient beds expanding to 128, treated 2,138 suicidal patients last year and was on pace to treat 2,500. However, the state faces critical gaps in outpatient services and behavioral health workforce. The state has trained over 600 peer support helpers since 2018 and served almost 450 clients through a substance use disorder residential treatment program, which had to halt new enrollments after one year due to overwhelming demand before funding was doubled.
Regional crisis response programs operating through each of the state’s eight human service centers provide 24-hour services with mobile teams responding within a 45-mile radius. Nevertheless, executives across the state report that community-based services remain inadequate and underutilized, with many residents unaware of available programs.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/suicide-drug-overdose-deaths-outnumber-highway-fatalities-amid-north-dakotas-mental-health-crisis