By Staff
NEW HOSPITAL WING Bradley A. Sanders stands Thursday outside a new wing of East Mississippi State Hospital named after him. The Bradley A. Sanders Adolescent Complex will offer in-patient psychiatric and substance abuse treatment for boys aged 12-17. Photo by Carisa NcCain / The Meridian Star
By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
April 19, 2002
A long-planned adolescent center officially opened Thursday at the East Mississippi State Hospital, offering in-patient psychiatric and substance abuse treatment for boys aged 12-17.
Lawmakers, local officials, health care workers and staff and board members from the state Department of Mental Health attended the opening of the Bradley A. Sanders Adolescent Complex.
The Thursday dedication ceremony and open house celebrated the completion of the first of two phases of construction that began in 2000. The first phase cost about $10 million to complete.
Phase 1 includes two buildings to house 25 patients each and provides short-term care, a clinical building and a gatehouse. It also includes and an educational building with a gym and classrooms.
Phase 2 will add three more buildings to provide 75 patients with long-term care; work will begin when funds become available. Once finished, the complex will have a food services area, an indoor pool and a chapel.
The complex is being built on a 63-acre tract of land in west Meridian.
The Sammy Davidson Sports Complex is on the north, Junior College Drive and Weems Mental Health Center are on the east, Mississippi State University-Meridian Campus is on the south and residential homes are on the west.
The new adolescent complex buildings will replace the 50-bed treatment unit that was built in the 1950s and that the hospital has used for male teens. Adults are also housed on a separate floor of the building.
Publicly funded, the East Mississippi State Hospital is operated by the Mississippi Department of Mental Health for psychiatric and substance abuse treatment for adolescents and adults.
It is licensed for 407 psychiatric beds and 228 nursing home beds.
Adolescents are also cared for at the Mississippi State Hospital near Pearl the hospital that houses female adolescents.