FULTON, N.Y. — The top official at Syracuse–based Liberty Resources says Oswego County has a “disproportionate” share of poverty, Medicaid population, and need for behavioral-health services.

“Suicide was actually, the last time it was evaluated, the number one reason for death in Oswego County, says Carl Coyle, CEO of Liberty Resources, a nonprofit provider of health care and social services. He spoke with BJNN on June 13.

Liberty Resources Inc. on June 7 held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of its future 50,000-square-foot health center at 14 Crossroads Drive in Fulton.

Its Syracuse clinics have a same-day access policy, Coyle notes. “You can walk in, unannounced, and you will be seen and evaluated that day. We cannot do that up in Fulton.”

Liberty Resources’ behavioral-health center currently provides therapeutic mental-health services in Fulton at its 945 South 1st St. location. The program has reached its capacity and holds an “extensive” waiting list of clients in need of support.

That waiting list had included about 90 people, according to Coyle. The organization was able to dwindle that figure down “substantially and then it blew right back up to 100” because it doesn’t have the space or therapists in Fulton.

The new health center will fill a “significant need in the community,” he contends.

At the same time, Liberty Resources is partnering with Farnham Family Services, which has offices in Oswego and Fulton and provides services for those needing substance-abuse treatment. The organizations are working together “because there’s such a significant opioid-abuse need in Oswego County,” says Coyle.

Farnham needed more space, so it’ll be occupying the upcoming building with Liberty Resources to provide a “fully integrated” substance abuse, mental health, and primary-care program.

With the upcoming health center, Coyle says Liberty Resources will add 15 to 20 new employees, including therapists and nurse practitioners.

The new building will increase capacity for Liberty’s current behavioral-health services in Fulton and allow it to add primary-care services as well, the organization said.

“That’s what we’re doing in Syracuse. We’re operating both of those services and that level of integration is highly robust,” says Coyle.

The “integration of care ensures” that patients have “all of their health needs met in one, easily accessible” location and helps to address the “significant” health-care shortage in Oswego County, Liberty Resources said.

The project is projected to cost $1.6 million, Meghann Perillo, who handles marketing and community engagement for Liberty Resources, said in an email response to a BJNN inquiry.

Rowlee Construction Inc. of Fulton is the general contractor and Syracuse architect Daniel Manning is the project designer.

Coyle anticipates the new health center will be ready to open in early 2020.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com