Reports that Butler Memorial Hospital is meeting with mental health professionals to determine how best to provide those services in the future is good news.

Mental health advocates and care providers have in recent months expressed concern over the BMH's future commitment to providing those services and providing them in the hospital.

As the debate over where to construct a new hospital and how that hospital will operate in the future, in-house mental health services appeared to be in jeopardy. A summary report of previous BMH studies put together by the Hammes Co. of Wisconsin to help cement consensus on the best location for a new hospital and the scope of the new hospital's services in the coming decades, stated the hospital's current psychiatric and substance abuse units would be "discontinued" in 2010. There was no public discussion of those services being offered in a new hospital.

Such a phasing out of in-house behavioral services was assailed by mental health care professionals and some family members of patients receiving mental health or drug and alcohol treatment. Still largely invisible to the general public, mental health services and drug and alcohol treatment provided at the hospital is crucial, even life-saving care for many people in Butler County.

With utilization of the hospital's current 59 in-patient behavior health beds — roughly divided between general psychiatric, geriatric and drug/alcohol treatment — averaging close to 90 percent, the need for these inpatient services in the community is obvious.

Any plan for a new hospital must examine how those patients can best be served. And the inpatient setting offers several advantages, including convenient treatment of patients with physical and well as behavioral components to their illness.

It cannot be overlooked that a stigma associated with mental health exists, and keeping behavior health services within the hospital no doubt eases misgivings people might have in seeking care as compared to a off-site location dedicated strictly to those services.

It is encouraging that county needs for behavioral health services — including mental health services as well as drug and alcohol treatment — are being examined while the feasibility of operating a two-campus arrangement for Butler Memorial Hospital is being studied by the Astorino architectural firm.

In November, groups including: Mental Health Association of Butler County, Irene Stacy Community Mental Health Association, Butler County Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Drug and Alcohol. Also included in the two meetings with hospital officials were PBS Associates, which includes psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as Horizon Health, which manages the BMH inpatient behavioral services.

Mental health services are not a highly visible part of the hospital, but current inpatient behavioral services at BMH reveal that the need is nonetheless great. For that reason it is encouraging that advocates for behavioral health services are making their case with officials from BMH for continuing to provide mental health services within the walls of any new hospital built to replace the current BMH facility.