{"id":121864,"date":"2025-09-05T13:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/121864\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T13:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:25:17","slug":"mahoning-county-officials-commit-to-opening-a-lock-in-mental-health-facility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/121864\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahoning County officials commit to opening a lock-in mental health facility"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\"logo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

News<\/p>\n

The push for a facility came to the forefront again after a man disarmed an officer and fatally shot himself in St. Elizabeth\u2019s Hospital in Youngstown last week.<\/p>\n

\n YOUNGSTOWN –
\n After a suicide occurred in a Mahoning County hospital, officials are working towards bringing back a psychiatric facility for the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a commissioners meeting Thursday, officials said a lock-in facility needs to come back to support the ongoing crisis that they’re seeing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMental illness is like any other illness: cancer, heart, diabetes, it’s part of that type of an illness and it’s the most underserved population,” Carol Rimedio-Righetti, Mahoning County Commissioner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would work alongside the psych units inside of hospitals and the mental health support the jail provides. The difference is any level of crisis would get help – not just the most severe.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur numbers justify it when you look at our criminal justice system and the problems that we\u2019re facing,\u201d Lynn Maro, Mahoning County Prosecutor said. \u201cIt is a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maro said when someone is suffering but deemed competent to stand trial she doesn’t have anywhere to send them for support in the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose people are falling through the gap,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The county has been without something like this for nearly 20 years after Youngstown’s Woodside hospital closed and was demolished. Now some feel bringing back a lock in a facility could be the difference between life and death.<\/p>\n

In 2024, were nearly 40 suicides in Mahoning County from January to August. This year in that same time frame it’s down to 26 but many officials are saying the county is still in a crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAny suicide is too many,\u201d Duane Piccirilli, the Executive Director of the Mahoning County Mental Health & Recovery Board said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve cut it in half and what we\u2019ve seen too is in the past it was all older men, older men are still the largest percentage but now we’re seeing women and younger people under 19 which we weren\u2019t even seeing before. So, the numbers are going down but they\u2019ve spread out across the whole gamut.\u201d<\/p>\n

The county does have some programs in place for support but often has to send people out of the county to facilities that provide long term inpatient help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time that you spend moving them to county to county could be that time when that person has a suicide or something happens to them,\u201d Commssioner Rimedio-Righetti said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had someone for that person to go to he would\u2019ve been there and gotten help that maybe he needed,\u201d Commissioner Remedio-Righetti said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Maro said the victim had previously been involved in the mental health court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was counseled on what to do if he felt things weren\u2019t going right and he did it,\u201d Maro said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maro claims the man was turned away from an unspecified hospital and later went to St. Elizabeth’s still seeking help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry that\u2019s not doing the best you can when you have someone show up at your doorstep saying I need help,\u201d Maro said. \u201cHe was a veteran, he was a father. Everybody should be outraged at what happened to him last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those supporting the idea of a new lock-in facility said the only thing holding them back is finding a building.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a professional person who’s done this in the past. He’s already lined up staff, we’re ready to go,\u201d Piccirilli said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Commissioner Remedio-Righetti committed to having this facility open by the end of\u00a02025.<\/p>\n

“I would hope and pray that it will be ready to go by the end of this year,” she told 21 News. “I’m going to commit to that. I’m hoping I could be right on\u00a0it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News The push for a facility came to the forefront again after a man disarmed an officer and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-121864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}