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Nixon breaks ground on new state mental health hospital

FULTON, Mo. — After years of wrangling for new funds and countless news stories about abysmal conditions, Gov. Jay Nixon broke ground on a new state mental psychiatric hospital today, marking the first full-scale rebuild of the facility first constructed in 1851.

Fulton State Hospital is the oldest psychiatric hospital west of the Mississippi and occupies a massive chunk of land on the edges of Fulton, Missouri. Over the years the facility — which is the state’s only maximum-security facility of its kind in the state — has become gradually less inhabitable.

The facility has become so deteriorated in both physical space and quality of treatment that roughly half of all state-employee workers’ compensation claims come from the employees of Fulton, making the hospital the most dangerous place to work in the state.

Last year, lawmakers approved a plan backed by Nixon for more than $200 million in funds to demolish the existing Fulton buildings and construct nearly 500,000 square feet in new buildings. Initial construction will be complete in December 2017, with the last patients at the maximum-security Briggs Forensic Center moving into a new building in the spring of 2018.

“We are morally obligated to provide Missourians suffering from severe mental illness the best care and treatment possible, in a safe and secure therapeutic environment,” Nixon said. “That is precisely what they will receive here at the new Fulton State Hospital.”

Mental health officials applauded the effort as a necessary step.

“The safety of staff and patients is critical to creating an environment of recovery and treatment,” said Dr. Keith Schafer, Director of the Department of Mental Health in a statement. “This will be a high security facility that will last for many generations and have the flexibility to change for future needs.”

 

PHOTO/COLLIN REISHMAN