WakeMed Health is breaking ground on new health campus with a focus on mental health in Garner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Construction of a 150-bed WakeMed mental health hospital connected to a 45-bed acute care hospital is set to begin Thursday. The site will be located near White Oak Crossing, at the intersection of Timber Drive East and White Oak Road.<\/p>\n
WakeMed\u00a0sees an average of 1,200 mental health patients monthly in its emergency departments; about 400 require inpatient care. Beds are available for only half, typically after a two-day wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly heartbreaking. You see people come in, you see the human suffering, and you know there is treatment available and things you can do, but there\u2019s just not space,\u201d Krempasky said.<\/p>\n
WakeMed Health\u2019s new campus Garner aims to change that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of health care, we often separate physical health from mental health. The mental health hospital will be on one area; the physical health hospital will be somewhere else \u2013 but we recognize the illnesses don\u2019t come that way. We are putting them together on one campus and building an area where people are happy to come,\u201d Krempasky explained.<\/p>\n
The goal is to integrate the campus into the community to encourage patients to think of mental health as they would any other illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a part of the community. It\u2019s not somewhere that\u2019s stigmatized and tucked away, but rather an integral part of our daily lives,\u201d Krempasky said. \u201cOur vision is to create somewhere people are proud to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The health campus will place an emphasize on \u201ctrauma-informed care,\u201d and include programs to support the whole family.<\/p>\n
The community supports WakeMed\u2019s efforts through a $50 million Courage to Confront Crisis campaign, spearheaded by the WakeMed Foundation.<\/p>\n
WakeMed Foundation Vice President Hank Woods told WRAL, community members have already donated over $32 million since its launch in April 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been amazed by how many people have been touched by mental health,\u201d Woods stated. \u201cIt\u2019s really been at times heartbreaking and yet heartwarming. Everyone has a story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The foundation began in 1994. Funding over the years has supported WakeMed employees pursuits of higher education and the construction of the WakeMed Children\u2019s Hospital in Raleigh.<\/p>\n
The Courage to Confront Crisis campaign is the largest campaign the foundation has ever taken on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the common themes we\u2019ve heard from folks is how massive a situation and problem that we\u2019re trying to address is,\u201d Woods told WRAL. \u201cThere have been meetings that we\u2019ve left pretty much in tears and yet uplifted because these people have turned around from a very deep and serious issue and invested in other members of the community get the help and healing they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
The majority of the $50 million will be used to support construction of the Garner campus, with additional funding going toward \u201cprogrammatic activities\u201d through the hospital, according to Woods.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an issue that does not discriminate across class lines or any other lines,\u201d Woods added. \u201cMy dream is we will have given people a path to get the help that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mental health campus comes after WakeMed opened WakeBrook in partnership with Wake County. The 28-bed inpatient psychiatric unit has helped the system improve its approach to behavioral health care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has been open for a little over a year. We feel so honored to provide this service for our county,\u201d Krempasky said. \u201cIn that past year we have really been able to do things the WakeMed way and make sure care is available to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
WakeBrook treatment includes a large focus on outdoor activity and exercise, something Krempasky shared will continue in the new WakeMed campus in Garner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WakeMed Health is breaking ground on new health campus with a focus on mental health in Garner.\u00a0 Construction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260,146710],"class_list":{"0":"post-275427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-wakemed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}