It was 21 years ago when Barb Habben was faced with an uncomfortable reality.  She had begun to notice changes in her son’s behavior and while it originally didn’t seem like a major issue that soon changed. Barb's son grew more and more mentally unstable and eventually, he had a major psychotic breakdown.  “We were kind of at a loss and we didn’t really know what to do or how to help him”.  It was during that difficult moment in her life when Barbara learned about the National Alliance on Mental Health or NAMI.  It was NAMI who helped her better understand what her son was going through.  The problem was that NAMI was not present in Eau Claire.  Barb and her husband helped to bring NAMI to the Chippewa Valley representing a major development when it came to providing mental health services and mental health education to those in need. While developments have been made to bring awareness to the issue of mental health in Eau Claire County has that transferred into actual progress? Data from the CDC as well as the Eau Claire City-County Health Department show that Eau Claire still has catching up to do and a recent development with the closure of the Sacred Heart Hospital may change things for the worse.

In 2024 the Community Health Assessment Planning Partnership Committee published its CHA(Community Health Assessment) for Eau Claire County ranking Mental Health as the second biggest health priority below Alcohol misuse.  Several eye-opening data points paint a troubling picture of the status of mental health across Eau Claire. The rate of self-inflicted emergency room visits per 100,000 people sat at 84.5 above the state rate of 72.2.  More concerning though was the number of suicides per 100,000 people which sat at 17 which is higher than both the state and national rates.    Previous Community Health assessments have revealed that Eau Claire has consistently had a higher suicide rate compared to the rest of the state and the country with these numbers  steadily growing year after year.  

It’s important to note that this Community Health Assessment was conducted before the closure of the Sacred Heart Hospital on March 22, 2024. The Scared Heart Hospital was a provider of mental health services for many with it being the only place in Eau Claire to provide inpatient behavior services for minors.  With the hospital’s closure, these services are no longer available, and those who relied on those services have been forced to look for these treatments elsewhere or even forgo those treatments altogether and seek alternatives. “We are already seeing the effect of this,” Barb said.  “We have heard of people having to go across the state or even out of state to receive treatment”.  One of the services Barb mentioned was a support group for individuals who lost loved ones to suicide.  “The group used to meet frequently.  Ever since the Sacred Heart Hospital closed down they have struggled to find a new meeting spot to host their sessions”.   While the closure of the hospital is still a fairly recent event and the fallout of the closure has still yet to be seen it is safe to assume that the result will not be a positive one as those who relied on the hospital for their mental health treatment are forced to look elsewhere. 

Barb spoke about how a high patient-to-provider ratio can have negative consequences when it comes to the ability of providers to give quality care to patients. “If a provider has a lot of patients they can get overwhelmed and they may have to limit the time they can spend on each client or they may be prevented from taking on new clients”, Barbara stated. “If a provider gets too overwhelmed you risk those people getting burned out and leaving the profession for good.  However, according to Kayla, the struggle does not stop at finding a mental health care provider. ”It can take as many as 11 sessions to figure out whether or not a psychiatrist is the right fit for someone. So, even if someone can find a psychiatrist who is willing to take them on as a patient it may take a long time to learn the psychiatrist is a poor match and the person will have to start the process of seeking treatment all over again”.   

One of the big contributors to mental health issues in Eau Claire is itself one of the County’s biggest health concerns. 2024’s Community Health Assessment listed alcohol misuse as the top health priority in Eau Claire County in comparison to previous Community Health Assessments which listed Alcohol misuse as their third priority. For several years Eau Claire County has reported a higher percentage of adults engaging in binge drinking compared to the state-wide and nationwide percentages with 27 percent of Eau Claire residents engaging in excessive drinking. While this isn’t surprising for a city that has been labeled by 24/7 Wall Street as the second drunkest city in America, these numbers are no less troubling when connected with mental health.  According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, nearly 50 percent of people who have problems with alcoholism also experience mental illness.  “It’s not uncommon for people who have a mental illness to turn to alcohol or drugs in order to self-medicate”.  Before it closed the Sacred Heart Hospital provided an Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Program (AODA). While there are similar services across Eau Claire the closure of the Sacred Heart Hospital will mean that those services will have to take on new patients further putting strain on their operations.  That is the prevailing theme of the Sacred Heart Hospital’s closure as other healthcare sectors including mental health have had more strain put on them with more patients to take on.

For several years the Eau Claire City-County Health Department has listed mental health at or near the top of their Health Concerns and priorities in their Community Health Assessments.  It seems that every year the Eau Claire Health Department acknowledges that mental health is a growing health concern among the community.   However, it seems that much work is still left to be done to address a very real problem.  The lack of services especially compared to other states and other parts of Wisconsin still serves as a barrier to treatment for many and the continued problem of alcohol misuse further exacerbates a troublesome situation.  While Eau Claire has been steadily improving when it comes to the population-to-healthcare provider ratio the closure of the Sacred Heart Hospital threatens to reverse that trend.  While the data has yet to reveal what the consequences of this event will be, the current data doesn’t exactly showcase Eau Claire County moving in a positive direction when it comes to dealing with mental health issues.  Barb often thinks back to her work in bringing NAMI to the Chippewa Valley.  She didn't do it for her.  She did it for her son and the people of Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley who needed the services NAMI provided.   For her, the closing of Sacred Heart Hospital represents a blow to the mental health services sector.  A sector that is already is lacking in services compared to neighboring states and other parts of Wisconsin.  While the future remains uncertain one thing has become clear.  If there ever was a time to invest in expanding mental health services in Eau Claire now is the time.