Beltrami County and Sanford Health Break Ground on New Crisis Center

Beltrami County and Sanford Health broke ground on their new behavioral health crisis center on Wednesday. It’s a $6.2 million project that was made possible through a partnership between Beltrami County and Sanford Health.

The county and Sheriff’s Office worked with Sanford Health initially, along with many other community members, to develop a behavioral health task force. This task force was a successful in getting a $2 million grant that brought many services to Beltrami County and with today’s groundbreaking facility.

The Sanford Bemidji Mobile Crisis Unit saw a 23% increase in encounters during 2019-2020 and an additional 44% increase from 2020-2021. In 2020, Sanford Bemidji Medical Center saw a total of 406 patients in crisis who required inpatient psychiatric care.

Susan Jarvis, President and CEO of Sanford Health Bemidji, says that there are two components to this facility: the first being a crisis center or an EmPATH (Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing) care unit for patients who are having a mental health crisis, and the second being eight inpatient behavioral health beds. The unit will be the only one in the state able to accommodate adults, children, and adolescents.

Sanford Health plans to have this facility open around the fall of 2022.