By Josh Edwards, Staff Writer
Published in The Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, June 8, 2023
RUSK — Texas celebrated the grand opening of a $200 million patient complex and administration building at Rusk State Hospital Wednesday as part of a $4 billion effort to overhaul the state’s mental health care system.
Appropriately, the celebration began and ended with tours highlighting what Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, called “the newest state-of-the-art mental health hospital in the United States.”
Nichols and Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, had been responsible for dozens of tours over the past few years to show state officials the structural faults in the 100-year-old hospital.
“It’s one thing to look at pictures, but to actually walk inside a facility and see what our patients and our workers are in is totally different,” Nichols said Wednesday. “They’d go back, and they never forgot what they saw. I promise you.”
The decrepit buildings weren’t the only thing that caught the attention of state officials. Each tour group noted the extreme dedication of the people of Rusk and Cherokee County to the hospital.
“That’s where their devotion is and it showed off. You could see it,” Clardy said. “The pride they have in the facility is only matched by the heart for service they have to take care of the mentally ill. We’re fortunate to have them in East Texas.”
Because of the tours and with encouragement from Nichols and Rusk businessman James I. Perkins, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick became a major supporter of the project and made overhauling and expanding mental health facilities around the state one of the pillars of his last campaign.
“This is part of the process of rebuilding the entire system across the state of Texas,” Nichols said.
The highlight of the renovations is a new three-story, 200-bed patient complex that looks more like a mix between a modern high school and a college dormitory than a traditional mental hospital.
“We’ve come a very long way in our behavioral health care in Texas,” said Perkins, who chaired the state’s Mental Health and Mental Retardation board under former Gov. George W. Bush.
Perkins, for whom the Stephen F. Austin State University College of Education is named, was a driving force behind renovating the hospital, said Rusk Mayor Ben Middlebrooks.
“Jim never lost faith that this could be done and contributed whenever possible and wherever possible,” Middlebrooks said.
The new facility features single-occupancy rooms, a library, a canteen, classrooms, spacious outdoor areas, a gymnasium, and other accommodations.
“I never thought we would have anything like this,” said Michelle Holman, programs coordinator for the hospital.
The hospital offers a variety of therapeutic, recreational, and social experiences designed to prepare patients for life outside the hospital. The new facility includes 100 beds for minimum security patients and another hundred for maximum security patients — those who pose a danger to themselves and others or have been hospitalized as part of a criminal case.
“Hopefully, they can take the model, the architecture, and the design and replicate it around the state,” Clardy said.
Each room is equipped with high-tech security features and makes use of natural light.
The new two-story administration building is 18,900 square feet and accommodates the administration department and IT staff.
Operating since 1919, Rusk State Hospital offers inpatient adult psychiatric services to people in 36 counties, including Harris County, the state’s most populous.
The hospital serves approximately an average of 270 people annually.
