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The push for a facility came to the forefront again after a man disarmed an officer and fatally shot himself in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Youngstown last week.
YOUNGSTOWN –
After a suicide occurred in a Mahoning County hospital, officials are working towards bringing back a psychiatric facility for the county.
In a commissioners meeting Thursday, officials said a lock-in facility needs to come back to support the ongoing crisis that they’re seeing.
“Mental 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.
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.
“Our numbers justify it when you look at our criminal justice system and the problems that we’re facing,” Lynn Maro, Mahoning County Prosecutor said. “It is a crisis.”
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.
“Those people are falling through the gap,” she said.
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.
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.
“Any suicide is too many,” Duane Piccirilli, the Executive Director of the Mahoning County Mental Health & Recovery Board said. “But we’ve cut it in half and what we’ve 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’t even seeing before. So, the numbers are going down but they’ve spread out across the whole gamut.”
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.
“The 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,” Commssioner Rimedio-Righetti said.
“If you had someone for that person to go to he would’ve been there and gotten help that maybe he needed,” Commissioner Remedio-Righetti said.
Prosecutor Maro said the victim had previously been involved in the mental health court.
“He was counseled on what to do if he felt things weren’t going right and he did it,” Maro said.
Maro claims the man was turned away from an unspecified hospital and later went to St. Elizabeth’s still seeking help.
“I’m sorry that’s not doing the best you can when you have someone show up at your doorstep saying I need help,” Maro said. “He was a veteran, he was a father. Everybody should be outraged at what happened to him last week.”
Those supporting the idea of a new lock-in facility said the only thing holding them back is finding a building.
“We’ve got a professional person who’s done this in the past. He’s already lined up staff, we’re ready to go,” Piccirilli said.
Commissioner Remedio-Righetti committed to having this facility open by the end of 2025.
“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 it.”