Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente has given $15 million to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland to build a behavioral health wing that will include the hospital’s first dedicated inpatient psychiatric rooms.
The 21,300-square-foot wing will have 20 private inpatient psychiatric rooms and is expected to serve about 700 children and adolescents a year, according to an Oct. 28 Kaiser Permanente news release. The project, part of the hospital’s broader modernization, also includes an outdoor therapy space and a therapeutic roof garden. The wing is expected to open in 2031.
“When a young person is in a mental health crisis, their family shouldn’t have to struggle to find the right care close to home,” Nicholas Holmes, MD, president of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, said in the release.
The grant follows Kaiser Permanente’s $25 million gift in August to expand emergency department capacity at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles.
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