PEORIA, Ill. — A new deal is announced which OSF says will bring a brand new behavioral and mental health treatment center to the area, the state’s largest anywhere south of Chicago.
OSF announced an agreement on Thursday with U.S. HealthVest to bring the new 100-bed facility to a location along Illinois Route 91 near several other medical offices on the north side of town.
“This vulnerable population having to deal with anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder coming through a pandemic. There is a whole host of reasons. People need care, but we don’t have enough in-patient capability,” said Ralph Velazquez, M.D. & OSF Chief Medical Officer.
Velazquez says behavioral health patients from across the entire region will receive care and treatment at the new facility.
In a release issued Thursday, OSF said there are hundreds of patients across the central Illinois region who have to travel out of the area to receive these services.
“We have not increased the number of beds and we continue to have to send people outside of the market and U.S. HealthVest is a company that has facilities in the Chicago area that we’ve already been sending people to and we’ve found them to be a very good partner.”
OSF says stakeholders are still overcoming regulatory hurdles, but that the new mental health facility is expected to be complete by late 2024 or early 2025.
