FAYETTEVILLE – Cape Fear Valley Health will hold a groundbreaking for The Dorothea Dix Care Unit for Adolescents (DDC Unit) at Cape Fear Valley Health on Thursday. The event will begin at 11 a.m. at 3425 Melrose Road, in Fayetteville.
The new 16-bed inpatient adolescent psychiatric unit will service children ages 12-18 and was generously funded by the Division of Health and Human Services through the Department of Mental Health.
Construction should take ten months and the unit is expected to open to patients in September 2021. John Bigger, Corporate Director of Psychiatric Services at Cape Fear Valley Health says if it were to open tomorrow, it would be full.
“Fayetteville is the fifth largest city in North Carolina, and home to Ft. Bragg, the largest military installation in the U.S.,” Bigger said. “Currently, children in our area must travel 70 miles to Raleigh or 110 miles to Jacksonville for inpatient psychiatric treatment. The DDC Unit at Cape Fear Valley will provide state-of-the-art mental health treatment to one of Cumberland County’s populations that needs it most, adolescents.”
The lack of open inpatient psychiatric beds across the state can cause children in crisis – and their families – to wait in the Emergency Department until a bed is available. That wait can take up to five days, or longer. More available beds will mean shorter wait times for the entire region.
The new unit will be staffed by psychiatrists and residents associated with the Cape Fear Valley Psychiatric Residency Program that was established in conjunction with Campbell University in 2018.