DICKINSON — Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare is expanding into Broome County, recruiting staff to run a new 50-bed facility serving those with substance-abuse issues. The center, in what had been Building 1 of the Broome Developmental Center in Dickinson, will open in April to serve as a medically supervised treatment center for patients with substance-abuse disorders, […]
DICKINSON — Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare is expanding into Broome County, recruiting staff to run a new 50-bed facility serving those with substance-abuse issues.
The center, in what had been Building 1 of the Broome Developmental Center in Dickinson, will open in April to serve as a medically supervised treatment center for patients with substance-abuse disorders, Kathleen Gaffney-Babb, SBH’s executive VP and chief operating officer, tells CNYBJ.
“There will be 50 beds of medically supervised withdrawal,” Gaffney-Babb says.
“It’s what many people think of as detox,” she says. That means some patients may arrive intoxicated or suffering from withdrawal symptoms requiring medication.
After treatment that averages three to five days, patients will be linked to the appropriate care, she adds.
To run the facility, SBH has started recruiting a new staff of 49, everything from doctors, psychiatrists, registered nurses and LPNs to directors, property maintenance workers and a receptionist. Gaffney-Babb says the plan is to staff the center with hires from Broome and surrounding counties, rather than bring staff in from SBH facilities in Syracuse and elsewhere.
SBH, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, operates 25-bed medically supervised treatment centers in Syracuse and Rochester. It also provides out-patient treatment for substance-abuse disorders, mental-health diagnosis, and problem gambling. The agency, headquartered in Crossroads Park in Salina, was founded in 1920 and has more than 350 employees and lists 10 doctors on its website.
SBH’s stated mission is: “To promote recovery from the effects of substance use and mental health disorders and other behavioral health issues.”
The nonprofit, “helped 5,441 begin a life of recovery in the last year,” according to the SBH website.
The need for a medically supervised treatment center for patients with substance-abuse disorders in Broome County was clear enough that the county put out a request for proposals to organizations able to handle the work, Gaffney-Babb explains. SBH applied and will lease the building, a residential facility that has been vacant for some time, and operate it with funding from the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, she says.
The facility will be able to treat those with different substance-abuse issues, but Gaffney-Babb says awareness of the current opioid-abuse crisis was a catalyst for development of the facility. Broome County opioid-involved deaths were up by at least 50 percent in the first half of this decade, according to statistics from the county website.
SBH held an information session for prospective employees on Jan. 18 at the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator in Binghamton.
Broome-Tioga Workforce will be holding a career fair Jan. 25 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Jeffrey P. Kraham Broome County Library in Binghamton. Health-care employers, including SBH, will be participating and conducting on-site interviews.
