Will Eagle County Be Impacted by the Potential Closure of Grand Junction Psychiatric Hospital?
On Tuesday, April 16, leadership from Mind Springs Health announced that it might have to close the West Springs Hospital in Grand Junction after a challenging five years.
Nico Brown, Vail Health’s chief strategy officer, said that West Springs is one of 15 inpatient psychiatric hospitals across the state that Vail Health regularly partners with “to treat our most vulnerable and at-risk populations.”
Through Vail Health Behavioral Health, the organization has made strides to address the mental health crisis in the Eagle River Valley and neighboring communities. Since its creation in 2019, Brown emphasized that Vail Health Behavioral Health (formerly Eagle Valley Behavioral Health) has grown to provide 1,700 outpatient therapy, psychiatry, and case management appointments per month with 25 licensed on-site providers. It has also worked to reduce the financial barrier to seeking treatment, he added.
This service growth has been supported by the creation of new infrastructure to meet community mental and behavioral health needs. In 2023, Vail Health Behavioral Health opened an outpatient behavioral health clinic, the Wiegers Mental Health Clinic, and is working toward opening a 28-bed inpatient facility, the Precourt Healing Center, in spring 2025.
However, until Precourt is open, Vail Health relies on other Colorado hospitals like West Springs in Grand Junction to accommodate this critical mental health need.
“Precourt cannot open soon enough to accommodate those needs, and individuals would have to be transferred even farther from their homes for access to care,” Brown said of the West Springs closure.
