MINNEAPOLIS, November 14, 2007—Fargo-based psychiatric health care organization Prairie St. John's announced today that it has proposed building a 96-bed psychiatric hospital in Woodbury.

The new beds will help address a growing problem in Minnesota's mental health system: a statewide shortage of about 500 inpatient psychiatric beds.

Prairie St. John's, a Catholic-affiliated organization with a hospitals in Fargo and a chemical dependency center in Moorhead, is moving into the Twin Cities market because many Minnesota patients have sought care at its North Dakota location.

"We see it as a benefit to families in the Twin Cities, who have had to travel to Fargo for this kind of treatment," said Alan Chapman, CEO of Prairie St. John's. The shortage of beds is very real and causes real problems for people. We won't want to see people who are in need of mental health services shortchanged."

The process of building a hospital is not a simple one. Under Minnesota's hospital moratorium law, permission must be obtained from the Legislature before construction can begin. Before that happens the Minnesota Department of Health must decide that the plan is in the public interest. If MDH approves the proposal, the Legislature will act on it in the 2008 session.

"Given the severe shortage of inpatient mental health beds in Minnesota," a news release from Prairie St. John's said, the organization "is optimistic that the Department and lawmakers will look favorably on its plan."

The issue of psychiatric hospital beds has been an important one for the MMA. At the AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago in June, the House of Delegates adopted as amended a resolution from the MMA to study and develop recommendations regarding the national scope of the problem of psychiatric bed availability and its impact on the nation’s emergency and general medicine resources.