The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health finalized the purchase of a vacant hospital in Oklahoma City to serve as the state’s largest psychiatric facility for people with severe mental illness last week.
The purchase, which had to be approved by The Vatican, came after the state agency scrapped its original plan to build a new hospital from scratch. Despite breaking ground in 2024, significant construction cost overruns forced the department to abandon ship.
The hospital, located near Will Rogers Airport in southwest Oklahoma City, will eventually replace the aging Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman, but the property needs renovations before patients can be transferred, according to the department…