 Sanford Health and Upper Mississippi Mental Health Center in Bemidji are joining forces. Both health care centers have talked about this merger for more than a year. Upper Mississippi Mental Health Center will operate under the name as Sanford Behavioral Health Center, the long term plan is to build and enhance the behavioral health service availability in the region. There's a lot of behavioral health, mental health, chemical dependency needs in our region that I think we can better serve together than we could separately. So I think our growth plan is really to identify what those needs are and develop programs to respond to that going forward together. The merger will be official on October 2nd. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.