Care providers, others speak in support of proposed behavioral health hospital in Springfield

The Oregon Health Authority will determine if a 96-bed psychiatric hospital being planned by PeaceHealth is needed in the community.

The health authority on Tuesday, Sept. 1, held a public hearing on PeaceHealth’s certificate of need application for Timber Springs Behavioral Health Hospital.

Once open, PeaceHealth would transfer its existing 35 adult psychiatric beds at the University District campus to Timber Springs, where it would have an additional 37 adult beds and 24 adolescent beds, said Alicia Beymer, chief administrative officer at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.

There are currently no inpatient adolescent beds in the area, said Dr. Adam Burch, who works at the University District behavioral health unit.

“We have to send these kids out of area,” Burch said. “They get sent hours from here sometimes. That is not only hard on these kids, that is hard on their families. And that is something that we’d really like to fix with this hospital.”

Shane Emmert, who oversees the PeaceHealth inpatient behavioral health unit in Eugene, said the new hospital will increase access to inpatient behavioral health care and reduce emergency department boarding.

Emmert said that from January to July this year, nearly 50% of adult patients who were referred to the behavioral health unit had to be sent out of the area due to lack of capacity. 

“In addition to our limited number of beds, we’re also limited because, in (our) current state, we are not licensed to care for patients requiring substance-use treatment, adolescent patients, geriatric patients experiencing behavioral health crises,” Emmert said. “Those patients are all referred out of area before they ever get referred to us. Timber Springs will allow us to expand care to these patient populations.”

The hospital, planned for land PeaceHealth has purchased about a mile from RiverBend hospital, would be built next to a crisis stabilization center proposed by Lane County. 

The stabilization center would act as an emergency room for behavioral health crises. Individuals could refer themselves or be taken there by law enforcement or first responders and, when they need inpatient psychiatric care, be transferred to Timber Springs, Beymer said. 

The Oregon Health Authority will make a proposed recommendation on the certificate of need by Oct. 16, a spokesperson said. That will become the final decision if there is no request for a contested case hearing within 60 days. 

‘We are causing harm’

The health authority heard from 15 people who spoke in support of the hospital at the hearing, which was held at the Springfield Utility Board Annex. 

Fran Munkenbeck said she has a relative with schizophrenia who lost his psychiatrist due to insurance changes. He ultimately left the state after his mental health condition worsened and received inpatient and outpatient care elsewhere, she said. 

Munkenbeck said her relative is in Eugene now and doing well on medications, “but he still does not have a psychiatrist, as there are few of them available in the area.”

“There was a time when I was not sure I would ever see him alive again,” she said, choking up. “We were very lucky. Not everyone is that fortunate. The stabilization center and the inpatient psychiatric hospital would give hope to people who suffer mental illness and to their families. It is so critically needed in this community and this state.”

Munkenbeck noted one concern she has is that PeaceHealth’s partner on the project is Lifepoint Health, because it is owned by Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm. 

PeaceHealth’s University District behavioral health unit has been managed by Lifepoint since 2024, according to the certificate for need application.

Jorge Ganem, a PeaceHealth pediatrician, said that when an adolescent comes to the emergency room with an acute mental health care need and requires an inpatient psychiatric bed, they have to wait in the emergency department.

“Sometimes they come to our unit, the inpatient pediatric unit, and wait there,” Ganem said. “That is a failure. That is a failure of the system to provide appropriate healthcare for mental health needs.”

“We are causing harm,” he continued. “We can cause harm through medication error, can cause harm through increasing the use of physical and pharmacologic restraint. We can cause harm by increasing family and loved ones’ stress, and we also cause harm by increasing moral injury and moral distress in mental health providers, in medical providers, our nurses, our physicians, everybody who works in the hospital.”

Dr. Sarah Coleman, an emergency medicine physician and vice chief of staff at RiverBend, spoke on behalf of the emergency room providers at PeaceHealth. 

“I don’t deny that the emergency department is chaotic and overwhelmed,” she said. “We need the new behavioral health hospital and stabilization center. We need help.”

She said the hospital currently has to hold adolescents in the emergency room for days or even weeks, where they are in a windowless room on a mattress on the floor. 

Adult patients are also held in the emergency department when the behavioral health unit is full, Coleman said.

“Trying to care for these patients in the environment has become increasingly difficult on our providers as well,” she said. “We have lost several ER physicians who have quit. They can’t do it anymore. We are asking for the ability to keep going.”

No one spoke opposing the behavioral health hospital.