Samaritan Unveils Expanded Inpatient Mental Health Unit
Published on: November 7, 2024
Watertown, NY – Samaritan Medical Center officials unveiled the newly expanded Inpatient Mental Health Unit (IMHU) during a ribbon cutting event on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. The Kinney Drugs Foundation/Kinney Drugs Inpatient Mental Health Unit redesign began over a decade ago to improve the patient experience.
“When this construction project began it was more about improving the quality of the patient care space and the environment in which we treated our patients as opposed to increasing our capacity,” stated Tina O’Neil, director of mental health at Samaritan. “We looked to upgrade the unit and add more privacy for patients, plus we added group rooms and meeting rooms for family meetings. We focused on soft calming colors and artwork, and all new furniture.”
Plans to improve this hospital unit began in 2006 as the organization outlined the hospital facility master plan to address the aging facilities and to add new space where needed. There were four distinct phases planned and the official opening of the inpatient mental health unit marks the fourth and final phase as complete.
“This ribbon cutting is more than to celebrate the new space for the inpatient mental health patients. This is culmination of the work that has went into the last project of our 2006 facilities master planning project,” said Thomas H. Carman, president and CEO of Samaritan Medical Center. “Almost a decade later we can say we completed what we set out to do and with IMHU in particular we were able to pivot this project to meet the current needs of our patients and the community.”
Prior to construction, the unit had 32 beds and by the end of construction was set to have 34. In 2023, Samaritan officials requested a change to the project and was approved to move forward by the New York State Office of Mental Health (NYS OMH). This allowed the unit design to pivot and add five additional private rooms for patients for a total of 39 with two of these including negative pressure capability for mental health patients who also have a communicable disease such as COVID-19 or Influenza.
‘We watched the needs of our community change prior to and during the pandemic. We did not have private rooms on the unit, nor in the current construction plan, and with OMH’s approval, we were able to make this shift,” said O’Neil. “Patients need private space for hygiene, gender, infectious disease and other reasons, and now we can accommodate them better with private rooms.”
Although the funds to complete this portion of the phase four construction project were budgeted around $12 million dollars, construction costs soared as time went on and adding the five additional private rooms had a cost of $2.2 million dollars extra. The Samaritan Foundation looked to the community and corporate donors to help offset the costs.
“Kinney Drugs and the Kinney Drugs Foundation have supported every major capital project initiative Samaritan has embarked on, as well as major corporate partner and supporter of Children’s Miracle Network,’ stated Carman. “Their commitment to the communities they serve is unwavering and Samaritan is appreciative of their support of this unit, named in their honor.”
During the ribbon cutting event, Mr. Carman thanked the generous donors who supported the need for increased mental health services in our community. The leading donors to this project were Kinney Drugs, the Kinney Drugs Foundation, Catherine and Bill Quencer, Samaritan Medical Center Foundation donors along with Foundation event proceeds from A North Country Festival of Trees and the Thousand Islands Golf Tournament.
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