Stephens Co Hospital Opening Behavioral Services Unit for Seniors

By Ethan Jordna, WNEG Radio, Toccoa

Stephens County Hospital is gearing up to expand its Senior Behavioral Health Department.

Stephens County Hospital Chief Executive Officer Van Loskoki says the Senior Behavioral Health Department will soon be operating at full capacity, with every bed staffed.

Loskoski says the Senior Behavioral Health Department will soon be operating at full capacity, with every bed staffed.

“We’ve started stepping into this program and by that, I mean we have an amount of staff that is able to see a smaller number of patients than the unit can hold physically. We wanted to increase our staffing as we increase in patient referrals. That seems like it’s going to happen sooner rather than later because right now we can staff about 6 beds of our 12-bed unit,” he said.

Loskoski said they just started admitting patients three weeks ago and that last week alone, they received four referrals, all of whom will likely be coming into the new unit.

That means they are probably going to have to expand staffing up to the 12-bed capacity within the next couple of weeks.

According to Loskoski, the plan is to open an Out-Patient Clinic in the near future to provide services to the entire population of Stephens County rather than just its Geriatric population.

“The next phase of this is going to be the outpatient clinic, we will in the next couple of months we will open a psychiatric clinic that will be staffed by some of the Psychiatrist help that we have in our unit. We will be recruiting a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Psych-trained Nurse practitioner as well that will be the team that works within that clinic. It will be on our hospital campus. That really serves all populations not just our older population as the Geri-Psych Unit does,” he said.

Additionally, Loskoski said says they are considering two locations to house the Out-Patient Clinic.