SEIL, Great River teaming up to increase mental health services

BY BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Great River Regional Medical Center of Burlington and the Southeast Iowa Link (SEIL), the mental health region of which Henry County is a member, are teaming up to beef up mental health services, county Supervisor Marc Lindeen told the board of supervisors in its regular weekly meeting Thursday.

According to Sarah Berndt, county coordinator of disability services/general assistance director, SEIL is joining forces with Great River to increase the hours of its behavioral assessment team, provide a 24-hour-a-day crisis line and add three additional minimum-care psychiatric beds.

Berndt said that Great River?s behavioral assessment team currently is on duty about 12 hours a day. The 24-hour accredited crisis line would be the first of its kind in the state, she added.

?We are also working with them on three psychiatric beds in the emergency room,? Berndt said. ?That way, if there are no beds available, they can go to a room and are not waiting in the emergency room for services.?

She said the beds adjacent to the emergency room would be for ?lower-level treatment.?

Each of the counties in the region will share costs on the 24-hour crisis line. In a 30-day month, Henry County will be billed $1,498.60, Berndt said.

Lindeen said that currently Great River has eight psychiatric beds but is adding three more and the three lower-level treatment beds in the emergency room will bring the total to 14 psychiatric beds.

?We have to have the beds at Burlington because if we didn?t, where would the people go?? asked Lindeen.

The supervisor also said that SEIL ?has been getting great reviews on everything they are doing.?

Supervisor sub-committee reports were the lone item on the board?s agenda.

The board will meet Monday, June 13, moving the meeting up a day due to conflicts. One of the items on the agenda for the 9 a.m., meeting will be a canvass of the June 7 primary election.