Pierce County will soon have a new psychiatric hospital. The Washington State Department of Health has approved the Certificate of Need application from CHI Franciscan Health and MultiCare Health System to jointly build and operate a $41 million, 120-bed non-profit psychiatric hospital in Tacoma.
Construction on the hospital, which will be built on the MultiCare Allenmore Hospital campus, will begin this year and conclude in 2018. The health systems created the independent non-profit organization the Alliance for South Sound to run the new hospital.
There has been a shortage of inpatient psychiatric beds in Pierce County since Puget Sound Hospital closed in 2010, with Pierce County’s per-capita rate of inpatient psychiatric beds falling to nine times below the national average. This new hospital will help combat the mental health boarding crisis our state has experienced the last several years.
Click here to read more in an article from The News Tribune. (Chelene Whiteaker)
