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ST. LOUIS — People experiencing a mental health crisis and seeking treatment here have a new resource to get help.

SSM Health in August opened a behavioral health urgent care and long-acting injection clinic at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital.

The new urgent care, the first of its kind in the city, is expected to alleviate traffic in the Saint Louis University Hospital emergency room, where people often show up experiencing a mental health crisis. Most patients can be stabilized and sent home, but inpatient and support services are available through the hospital if needed.

"As we all know, behavioral health crises don't happen on a schedule. Our residents need a place to go immediately in their most vulnerable moments," Dr. Matifadza "Mati" Hlatshwayo Davis, the city's health director, said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The city's Department of Health is one of the partners of the project.

The urgent care is located along a busy St. Louis artery, near public transportation. It is inside the old emergency room space of the former main hospital building. The system built a new hospital next door, which opened in 2020.

Davis said the urgent care should help fill gaps in care created by the loss of behavioral health beds at another facility, South City Hospital, that closed in 2023.

"Citizens and their families will be able to walk into this location and get the behavioral health care and resources they desperately need when they need them," she said.

The facility includes a long-acting injection clinic, the third SSM Health operates in the region. SSM Health opened a similar clinic at SSM Health DePaul Hospital — St. Louis in 2018 and behavioral health urgent care in 2020 on the same campus in the suburb of Bridgeton. It opened a long-acting injection clinic in the suburb of Wentzville in 2020 that includes an intensive outpatient program for adolescents, adults and geriatric patients. A pilot long-acting injection program elsewhere on the campus of Saint Louis University Hospital will be moved next to the urgent care.

The clinics treat those with behavioral health disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disease and substance abuse disorder. People can get an injection that works for a month or longer to treat those disorders instead of having to take daily medication. Consistency of the dosage and not having to remember to take the medication every day can decrease the risk of relapse or other complications.

"We are opening a behavioral health urgent care next door to the long-acting injectable clinic because we've seen the effectiveness of these two services combined," Dr. Erick Messias, the system's chief medical officer of the behavioral health division, said at the ribbon cutting.

Responding to growing needs
The long-acting injection clinic in Bridgeton gets about 400 visits a month, and the urgent care gets closer to 300. In St. Louis, SSM Health expects about 40 people to visit the clinic monthly and 184 people to visit the urgent care, with those numbers growing over time.

At the ribbon cutting, Dr. Alexander Garza, SSM Health's chief community health officer, pointed out that more than 50 million Americans have experienced a behavioral health issue, but fewer than half of them have had access to behavioral health care. He said those who have behavioral health issues also suffer more medical issues. Their families and communities suffer as well, he said.

"SSM Health continues its 150-year tradition of responding to the needs of the communities we are so blessed to serve by investing in innovative care and delivering behavioral health urgent care and the long-acting injectable clinic, but also by coming together with our community partners in a transformative way, by meeting people where they are and when they are in crisis," he said.

In addition to the city health department, the urgent care and clinic will work with Places for People, a behavioral health organization. The organization will provide behavioral health assessments and other services, such as connections to transportation and housing.

"We are prepared to be able to support complex needs and help people achieve stability," Barb Zawier, an executive at Places for People, said in a statement.

The urgent care and injection clinic were mostly funded by donations raised through the philanthropic Mabee Foundation and donations secured by the SSM Health Foundation — St. Louis. At the ribbon cutting, the SSM Health Foundation presented a check for more than $3 million for the project.

The former emergency room was renovated to include 11 examination rooms, eight for the behavioral health urgent care and three for the long-acting injection clinic. The clinic will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, modeled after times when most people visit hospitals, said Matthew Mindrup, the director of outpatient behavioral health for SSM Health St. Louis.

The project extends beyond the behavioral health urgent care and the injectables clinic, he said. The partnership with the outside agencies will help ensure that patients follow up, make appointments, or even get a ride for a return visit.

"Historically, a lot of what we've done is once a patient leaves, it's best of luck in hoping the patient will make it to their next follow up appointment," Mindrup said. "It's transformative in that we're going to be connected with these patients after discharge to ensure they have the resources needed to get to their next level of care."

'I've come a long way'
Justin Brasfield of St. Louis is one of the long-acting injectable clinic's patients. Once a month, he gets a shot of paliperidone palmitate to help treat a schizoaffective and bipolar disorder. He has been on medication since 2012 but started getting the shot in 2014. He sought out the treatment after family members noticed mood swings and he noticed that his appetite and enthusiasm for daily activities had waned.

He sometimes takes a daily pill to tide him over until his next injection. "Recently, what I've been doing has been helping big time," he said.

While Brasfield has received the injectables elsewhere on the hospital campus, he's happy that the services will be streamlined in the clinic and more accessible to others who may need them. People have told him he should be a patient advocate because he's learned what questions to ask and who to go to for help.

He's married, has a steady job, is active in church, and has a supportive family, he said. "Just to have the resources available to you, and to use those tools, that really helps out a whole lot," he said. "I just told my grandmother today I'm proud of myself. I've come a long way."