Plan to turn vacant Hillcrest hospital into state mental health facility gets backing
WACO -- Local and state leaders are backing a plan that would convert the vacant former Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center into a state-owned mental health facility, a proposal that could ease a statewide mental health crisis and add 1,000 new jobs to the area.
Trying to reverse a troubling trend that has left shortages in mental health beds across the state, Texas lawmakers appropriated $300 million during the past session to upgrade inpatient mental health services.
Charles Smith, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, has recommended that $1 million of that go toward buying the former Hillcrest hospital building on Herring Avenue and another $1 million go to architects, consultants and others to draft plans to renovate the nine-floor, 600,000 square-foot facility.
If plans go as local officials hope, the state will buy the facility this year, then the Legislature will appropriate $65 million in the next legislative session to turn the vacant building into a 339-bed mental health hospital. The facility could become one of the 10 largest employers in Central Texas over the next four to six years, officials said.
Read more: http://www.wacotrib.com/news/health/plan-to-turn-vacant-hillcrest-hospital-into-state-mental-health/article_82e5c093-9a59-50d0-8fed-64a162b41d7d.html
