Sen. Lisa Blunt-Rochester highlights how federal funding will help two healthcare centers providing services in Sussex County
Blunt Rochester visited the La Red Health Center, and the TidalHealth Nanticoke campus to see what federal funds are supporting.
TidalHealth Nanticoke recently completed a behavioral health treatment area in its Seaford hospital's emergency department. That received $1 million in Community Project Funding from Congress.
TidalHealth Nanticoke’s Chief Medical Officer Trudy Hall says the funding helped deliver a vital tool.
“Forget useful, let’s talk about absolutely necessary. It is necessary. The ability for someone who’s in crisis to come to the Emergency Department and have the safe environment- Joint Commission requires that, if anyone comes in, it has to be safe." she told DPM. "That's why our environment had to be modified, to improve that safety"
The new rooms are stripped back rooms that are intended to eliminate all ways in which someone in crisis could harm themselves: beds with no sheets, pillows with no pillowcases, and rounded chairs with no sharp edges.
Safety also extends into the rooms construction as well- windows are not breakable by patients, and the ceilings are not conducive to leverage that a patient might use to harm themselves through auto-asphyxiation.
TidalHealth Nanticoke officials say their mental health professionals now alternate between providing care at this facility and venturing out to provide care in the community.
La Red used $720,000 in federal funding to make infrastructure improvements that Blunt Rochester says the facility severely needed.
“It’s also going to improve morale for the people that work here, because it’s improving their HVAC system- it’s hard to feel good when it’s too hot outside and it’s hot in the building. It going to also help with safety issues, like making sure that there’s good lighting in the parking lot” she said.
La Red’s funding will also be used to repave the parking lot and purchase and install solar panels to deliver part of the building's electricity.
