HALIFAX — Nova Scotia is opening an outpatient clinic in Halifax that will pilot a new model of care for some mental health patients, the province's minister for addictions and mental health said Wednesday.

The 10-patient unit, scheduled to open in mid-April, will treat people who need acute care but aren't sick enough to require overnight hospitalization, Brian Comer told reporters.

"Not everyone needs round-the-clock hospital care," Comer said. "This hospital will address that gap and provide another way of delivering intensive mental health services while allowing patients to stay closely connected with their families and communities."

Comer said the $1.4-million facility, which will use existing space at the QEII Health Sciences Centre, should eventually free up beds in hospital mental health units. The new Halifax clinic could eventually expand to 20 patients, he added.

The minister said there are high occupancy rates across Nova Scotia within acute psychiatric units. "Occupancy rates in the central zone (Halifax) regularly exceed 100 per cent," he said. "This means that more patients need to be transferred across the province."

Comer said the government hopes the new unit can serve as a "relief valve" for the system, adding that research indicates 20 per cent of patients in traditional inpatient units "could actually receive the same outcomes from this (new) service."

Data on the pilot project will be collected over the next six months to a year, with the goal of eventually expanding the concept to other areas of the province, Comer said.

The new Halifax hospital unit will be staffed by a team of specialists, including a newly hired psychiatrist.

Dr. Sanjana Sridharan, head of acute consultation and emergency psychiatry at Nova Scotia's health authority, said the new clinic's patients will receive treatments that include psychotherapy over a period of two weeks to a month, depending on the severity of their illnesses.

"They can get whatever (treatment) they can get as an inpatient," she said. "We will come up with a personalized program … it will be tailored to their symptomatology."

Patients will be referred to the day hospital through community mental health clinics and emergency departments, Sridharan said, adding that people discharged from inpatient psychiatric care may also be referred for followup care.

Health officials said the concept is used in Ontario and in countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2022.

Keith Doucette, The Canadian Press