Second new senior behavioral health hospital in a month to open in Wichita area

As the number of seniors needing behavioral healthcare grows, so does the number of places to care for them.

St. Veronica Senior Behavioral Health Hospital at Catholic Care Center is a new acute-care hospital on the center’s Bel Aire retirement and healthcare campus.

“There’s such a need out there,” said CEO Cindy LaFleur.

The hospital will open the second week of July.

Along with the 20-bed St. Veronica, there’s also the new Corterra Healthcare Ventures 24-bed geriatric psychiatric hospital, which opened in June on the west side of Wichita.

“We want to be a partner with them as well,” LaFleur said.

She said the intent from the beginning of the Catholic Care Center 30 years ago “was to show the world how to care for seniors.”

The Catholic Diocese of Wichita owns the not-for-profit ministry.

St. Veronica is designed for short stays of about 11 to 17 days for seniors who are going through psychiatric conditions to receive medication and group therapy “and help them get back in their previous setting,” LaFleur said.

She said seniors sometimes need help with the significant changes they go through in their living experiences or with changes that happen with their brains as they age. Sometimes they have long-term conditions that require treatment.

“This is designed to really help them with their quality of life.”

The Catholic Care Center has had a certified dementia care program for more than 15 years.

“We have focused on that from the very beginning,” LaFleur said. “We live in this business every day.”

Four years ago, the center started looking at a designated hospital for that care in a less clinical setting.

“What we wanted to design . . . was the ability to make it look and feel very homelike,” LaFleur said.

She said it’s all about making patients comfortable and destigmatizing their care and making it more mainstream.

“We want to help be that answer and that resource.”

The center renovated existing space for the hospital.

LaFleur said there could be more than 20 beds in the future if there’s a need.

“We’ll be monitoring that.”

St. Veronica is named for the woman who is said to have stepped forward from the crowd and offered her veil to wipe the face of Jesus as he carried a cross to Calvary.

“She had kindness and compassion,” said Jennifer Sanders, the Catholic Care Center’s director of marketing.

Sanders said St. Veronica aided Christ in his suffering just as the hospital now wants to aid patients in need.

“She is the perfect patron saint for us.”