Northwell Health will expand its inpatient psychiatric capacity on Long Island by 28 beds using $6.6 million in state funding announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office. The investment includes $5.6 million toward a new 24-bed adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park and four beds at Amityville’s South Oaks Hospital for adolescents with mental illness and substance use disorders. Approximately $1 million will improve recreational facilities at South Oaks and Port Jefferson’s Mather Hospital.
“We want them off the screens, we want them doing stuff that’s physical, we want them interacting,” said Dr. John Young, Northwell’s senior vice president for behavioral health. The funding extends a $2 billion state effort begun in 2023 to address a mental health crisis exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic isolation.
A 2024 state comptroller’s report found that from 2014 to 2023, Long Island lost 47 psychiatric care beds in Nassau and 129 in Suffolk. “The trend nationally, in the city and on Long Island, has been that health systems are contracting and closing behavioral health units because the reimbursements are not good and they lose money,” Young said. In contrast, Northwell now supports more psychiatric care beds than it did a decade ago, with 455 state-licensed beds on Long Island.
Advocates acknowledged the welcome investment while noting persistent gaps. “Are these beds enough? Based on the way we currently care for people, no, they’re not,” said Liz Hildebrandt, executive director of NAMI Queens/Nassau. A 2024 comptroller report found that the number of people served by the state’s public mental health system rose 23% over the last decade, with severe mental illness cases rising even as state psychiatric center beds steadily declined. The state created the Office of Hospital Care and Community Transitions last year to help hospitals find service gaps and support people at risk of readmission.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.newsday.com/news/health/northwell-psychiatric-state-funding-hochul-long-island-p97p0cv2