AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) -Hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated to expand mental health care in Georgia through the construction of a new state hospital, and Augusta is among the locations under consideration.

Mental health advocates in Augusta say local facilities currently offer only short-term treatment, and patients with more severe needs are often required to travel to Atlanta for care. Even there, a lack of inpatient beds and a backlog for state hospital placement leaves many patients without the care they need.

NAMI Augusta weighs in

Peter Menk, a board member for the National Alliance on Mental Illness Augusta chapter, said the new facility would serve a significant number of people in the region.

“MCG had shut down. The VA uptown is more military oriented. Even going back in the day into Gracewood, a huge facility that helped a lot of people,” Menk said. “This funding will really go a long way in the state of Georgia to really become kind of a centerpiece for health care in general.”

Augusta’s role in the conversation

Talks have indicated Atlanta may be the site of the new state hospital, though other locations — including Augusta — are still being considered. State Sen. Blake Tillery said Augusta remains part of the discussion.

“The good news is if it doesn’t go to Augusta in the first round, we need to build three of these,” Tillery said. “So we’re going to have to build another one in order to have the bed space necessary to make sure that our jails aren’t being used as our state’s mental health hospitals. So do know that yes, Augusta is going to be pivotal to this conversation.”

Local provider moves forward with its own facility

Serenity Behavioral Health Crisis Center has also begun work on its own facility in the Augusta area, with a planned opening in May. The center said it hopes the facility will provide more beds and resources, and ease the burden on law enforcement and hospitals in the region.

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A federal commission studying national security will tour an Augusta factory poised to help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign biotechnology.

The Manus factory on Lovers Lane uses and improves eco-friendly manufacturing methods to produce Reb M, a sweetener derived from the stevia plant but missing the bitter aftertaste in other stevia extracts.

On March 11, Manus will unveil and explain the major expansion of its domestic biomanufacturing capacity to members of the U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, created in 2022 under the National Defense Authorization Act.

Granted: Augusta biotech company gets $15M to boost Tamiflu production, fight flu

Manus touts itself as a biotech success story. Four years after the 2014 closure of Augusta’s NutraSweet artificial sweetener factory, Manus reintroduced an upskilled workforce to make the factory one of the world’s largest fermentation facilities. There, microbes are engineered to allow reliable mass production of Reb M.

Biomanufacturing often struggles with scalability. Extracting a particular molecule from a plant might succeed in a lab, but teasing out those molecules on an industrial level traditionally has been unsustainable.Reb M, which is about 200 times sweeter than sugar, exists in such small quantities in stevia plants that extracting it using more mainstream methods often was financially impractical, until Manus developed its proprietary production method.

Manus’ Augusta plant produces Reb M for the brand-name sweetener Yume, from the Japanese word for “dream.”

“Biomanufacturing is not a future promise – it’s here now, in rural Georgia,” says Ajikumar Parayil, Manus’ founder and CEO. “The Augusta BioFacility stands as proof that we can reshore production, create high-quality American jobs, and deliver resilient innovation at scale. We are honored to showcase this capability to the NSCEB and contribute to shaping a strong, coordinated national strategy.”

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Voters in Georgia House District 130 headed to the polls Tuesday to fill the seat held by Rep. Lynn Heffner, who resigned.

The Augusta Democrat resigned because she was unable to meet the residency requirement for House District 130 due to damage to her home by Hurricane Helene.

Six candidates are on the ballot — four Democrats and two Republicans.

Early results

Results are coming in. Here is where the race stands:

• Shelia Nelson, Democrat: 45.22%
• Karen Gordon, Democrat: 20.65%
• Sha’Quanta Calles, Democrat: 15.65%
• LaFawn Pinkney-Mealing, Democrat: 7.61%
• Thomas McAdams, Republican: 5.43%
• David Carson, Republican: 5.43%

This story will be updated as votes continue to come in.

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