Yet that health care gap for youth soon could be filled. A subsidiary of the Children’s Home of Wheeling has started the process to repurpose the Byrd Center to provide inpatient psychiatric services to children and adolescents in the Northern Panhandle.

Orchard Park Hospital, LLC, a nonprofit subsidiary of the Children’s Home of Wheeling has initiated the approval process to create a 30-bed adolescent acute care psychiatric hospital on the former Byrd Center’s grounds at 2211 Eoff Street.

The building, constructed in 2009, is in good condition, Children’s Home Board President Tanner Russell said, but plans are underway to make certain renovations to operate as an adolescent psychiatric hospital.

“The formation of Orchard Park Hospital, LLC, and the decision to invest in an inpatient facility is a further reflection of the commitment of the Children’s Home to provide behavioral healthcare for youth in our community,” Russell said, “and we look forward to working in cooperation with the other health care providers in the area in fulfilling this mission.”

Further announcements on the project’s progress will be made as the timing for completion of renovations and regulatory approvals are obtained, Russell said.

The Byrd Center closed its doors in September 2019 along with the rest of the OVMC campus. Alecto Healthcare Services, a California healthcare company, finalized the purchase of OVMC in June 2017. Just over two years later, the company shut down the hospital. Since then the City of Wheeling purchased the former OVMC campus, but the Byrd Center was not part of the agreement.

After the Byrd Center closed, mental health professionals in Ohio County Schools worried about what that absence would mean for health care for youth in the region. When the center was open, if a guidance counselor identified a student as being a danger to himself or herself, that student first was referred to an emergency room for examination and treatment. That student then would go to the Byrd Center if additional care was necessary.

Currently, the Children’s Home of Wheeling, which has served area youth since 1870, operates a 14-bed residential treatment facility for adolescent males with a variety of behavioral health needs. The organization wants to further expand those services to help even more children.

“Our organization has dutifully served the community for over 150 years,” Jacquelyn Knight, Executive Director of the Children’s Home, said, “and this is an exciting opportunity for us to continue that service by bringing a much needed service back to our area.”