Could an outpatient facility step into the vacant Capital One building?
Hospital CEO and president Paul Connor said the new partner organizations have been discussing the types of services they’d like to establish in Southold Town.
In particular, he said, they’ve talked about collaborating on outpatient psychiatric services.
“Rather than everyone having to travel to Stony Brook, we’ve been looking at ways to bring the care out to the folks on the East End,” Mr. Connor said. “The takeaway here is the relationship with Stony Brook is to bring services to ELIH that don’t exist here.”
Laura Jens-Smith, project coordinator for the North Fork Alliance and president of the Mattituck school board, agreed that more mental health services, as well as coordinated aftercare, are needed locally.
When asked for comment on the former bank as a potential site, Ms. Jens-Smith said it would be “wonderful” to have an outpatient pediatric psychiatric facility available locally.
“Sometimes the schools aren’t notified when a student has been hospitalized or released,” she said. “When they’re thrown back into their daily lives, they can’t handle it and don’t do well.”
Editor’s note: North Fork Counseling Service confirmed Thursday the information about the center’s staff provided to The Suffolk Times was incorrect. The company has 14 social workers and three psychiatric nurse practitioners. In addition, there’s a part-time psychiatrist, children and youth mobile team to visit youth in their homes when they don’t have transportation and a co-location.
