PHOENIX — Two years after staffing shortages forced Valleywise Health to cut psychiatric services, the network is working to replenish its mental health care capacity.
The first step was this week when Valleywise Behavioral Health Center Maryvale, a mental health hospital in Phoenix, reopened 15 inpatient beds.
“We were eager to reopen these beds to care for patients with severe mental illness,” Gene Cavallo, vice president of behavioral health services at Valleywise, said in a press release Wednesday. . “This is another step in reopening beds affected by severe staffing shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
With 412 licensed beds across three hospitals in Mesa, central Phoenix and the Maryvale area of west Phoenix, Valleywise Health is Arizona’s largest provider of court-ordered inpatient behavioral health care, according to a release. It is.
How is Phoenix Hospital replenishing its mental health care capacity?
Three Maryvale stores will close in 2022, citing a shortage of mental health professionals.
Valleywise Health said it is actively hiring psychiatric nurses, technicians and other staff and plans to continue reopening closed units over the next 12 to 18 months.
“We also train new psychiatrists. Through the Creighton University Arizona Health Education Alliance, Valleywise Health runs a psychiatry training program that annually trains eight adult psychiatrists and four We are graduating child psychiatrists,” Cavallo said.
What is Valleywise Health?
Valleywise Health, renamed from Maricopa Integrated Health System in 2019, is a safety net health care system in the Phoenix area.
Valleywise Health Medical Center, a new flagship hospital at 24th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Phoenix, is scheduled to open in April.
This new facility represents a significant upgrade from Valleywise’s traditional hospital, which opened in 1971. This medical center is the only public teaching hospital in Arizona.
