New Psychiatric Hospital Plans Expansion in Maple Grove

A new hospital in Maple Grove is making plans to expand just months after opening its doors.

PrairieCare, a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents, opened in February of 2011. The variety of mental health services offered at the facility are so high in demand an expansion is already needed.

“One of the services we offer is an inpatient hospital for those needing around the clock treatment and within just a few weeks of opening our doors we were already at capacity,” PrairieCare Community Relations Representative Jen Holper said. “There is no doubt there is a demand for our services.”

PrairieCare opened with 20 inpatient beds and plans to add 30 more. However, to make this addition lawmakers had to get involved. The facility needed legislative approval to expand because of a moratorium placed on building new hospitals. Lawmakers put the moratorium into place in the 80s to prevent too many hospitals from being built in the Twin Cities. Prairie Care was granted an exception to this rule during the 2011 legislative session and is now designing a new addition to their facility off of Highway 494 and Bass Lake Road in Maple Grove.

“We are all very excited about the expansion,” PraireCare Needs Assessment Supervisor Jonna Board said.  She evaluates patients to see what kind of treatment is best. 

“We want to talk with each person that comes through here and hear their story,” she said. “We want to make sure they aren’t shuffled through the system, we want to find the right treatment options for them.”

PrairieCare helps children dealing with bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, 91,000 adolescents in the state need treatment for an emotional disturbance that is interfering with their daily life.

Currently if a child ends up in the emergency room with an emotional crisis, they are kept at the hospital until a bed opens up at a psychiatric care facility like PrairieCare. 

“We’ve heard parents tell us that their child had to wait in a hospital for eight days because no beds were available,” Holper said. “That’s unacceptable, that’s eight days that this child went without the specialized treatment needed.”

Holper sees this new expansion, tentatively scheduled to open in 2013, as way to reach out to more kids in need.

“I think this is just the beginning of the services we’ll provide in this area,” she said. “I see continued growth for us in the future.”