L.A. County opens mental health urgent care center near Olive View

 
The new county-run mental health urgent care center that opened near Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar on Wednesday is expected to relieve crowding at the hospital’s emergency room and expand outpatient treatment for the mentally ill across the San Fernando Valley.

The $10.8-million center is the third that county officials have helped open in recent years, including facilities east of downtown near Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and on the Westside near Brotman Medical Center.

Olive View's psychiatric emergency room has a dozen beds, its psychiatric ward 32 beds, and they are often busy, officials said.

The psychiatric emergency room sees 5,000 to 6,000 patients a year, about half of whom come in search of prescriptions or other non-critical care and would be better served in an urgent care, said to Dr. Alex Kopelowicz, the hospital's chief of psychiatry.

“We’re decompressing the ER,” Kopelowicz said as he toured the new facility shortly before the opening ceremony Wednesday afternoon. “It should also make it easier to transition people to ongoing care and make sure they don’t fall through the cracks.”

The mission-style building, complete with Spanish tile, specially commissioned sculptures and paintings, was paid for with $6.65 million from the county’s general fund and $4.15 million in state income tax money gathered under the Mental Health Services Act, or Prop 63.