Enloe Health Shifting Mental Health Services – Chico Enterprise-Record

The Enloe Behavioral Health building on Cohasset Road in Chico, California on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (Jake Hutchison/Enterprise-Record)

CHICO — When is a closure not a closure? When a facility closes but services continue, which will be the case at Enloe Behavioral Health.

Effective August 15, Enloe Health will stop providing psychiatric care to patients at the center on Cohasset Road. Staff learned of the decision Monday; the news started spreading online and Enloe publicly confirmed it on Tuesday.

But, contrary to rumors on social media, Enloe CEO Mike Wilttermood told this newspaper on Tuesday afternoon that services will shift to the main hospital to accommodate patients with both mental and physical conditions.

“Especially since the Camp Fire and COVID, we have had an increasing number of patients with secondary diagnoses of mental illness in our emergency rooms requiring admission,” Wilterood said. “The vast majority of the (psychiatric) patients we care for have a physical condition that we cannot respond to in the voluntary behavioral health center.

“We’re just trying to redeploy our resources – that’s really the reason for the closure.”

The facility at 560 Cohasset Road is the only voluntary inpatient center in Northern California, according to its website; in the same complex, Butte County Behavioral Health operates a 16-bed psychiatric unit for patients referred there.

Enloe Behavioral Health has 26 beds. However, Wiltermood said the count ranges from three to six patients – compared to 30 or more at the hospital – and that the inpatient facility only treats mild conditions, as opposed to complex cases.

“The vast majority of inpatient care (psychiatric care) is provided by Butte County Behavioral Health,” he explains. “The closure of this very small unit does not impact the services that the province provides, nor will it impact the services provided here at the Esplanade campus, other than providing us with increased psychiatric support.”

Enloe Behavioral Health has 35 employees. Some will join Dr. Ahmed Abouesh, medical director of psychiatry, on a behavioral health team at the hospital. Others will have options to transfer to other departments – Wiltermood said Enloe Health currently has 170 open positions.

“The core psychiatric team will be smaller,” he continued, “although we are unsure of the composition of the team. But I’m sure the service will grow as we get used to that support (on hospital wards) because we haven’t had it in the past.

“We were very dependent on Butte County Behavioral Health to assess patients in the emergency department. Because I feel comfortable admitting patients with both a mental illness and a physical problem, I think having team members who have experience with psychiatric care will make people a lot more comfortable.”

Enloe Vice President Jolene Francis noted that the 24/7 crisis line at 530-332-5250 will remain fully staffed after the transition. Until August 15, the behavioral health center will continue to operate as it does now.

“I am confident that having this additional psychiatric resource will assist us in treating our patients,” Wiltermood said. “It will get them better faster, hopefully get them into a non-acute setting, and it will create more bed capacity for us.”