Dorothy Sawyer is named CEO of Fairfax Behavioral Health and Providence Health Care

click to enlarge Dorothy Sawyer is named CEO of Fairfax Behavioral Health and Providence Health Care
An architectural rendering of the new behavioral health hospital, to open in 2018.

After wrapping up her tenure as CEO of Eastern State Hospital, Dorothy L. Sawyer has taken a new job as CEO of a 100-bed psychiatric hospital currently being built in Spokane.

"We're incredibly excited about having her," Fairfax CEO Ron Escarda says. "She's got just a tremendous breadth of experience."

Sawyer, who led Eastern State from August 2013 until the end of March of this year, earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Eastern Washington University. She worked as a nurse in the Spokane area before holding CEO positions at two Arizona hospitals and then returned to the area for the Eastern State job.

"At a time when demand for behavioral health services is growing, it's rewarding to be a part of such important work to expand access to behavioral health services for our community," Sawyer says in a news release about her hiring.

The hospital, a joint effort by Fairfax Behavioral Health and Providence Health Care, is slated to open this fall and will significantly add to the number of mental health beds available in the area.

Located on the Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center campus at Fifth Avenue and Browne Street, the new building will serve adults and children with behavioral health needs, offering outpatient and short-term inpatient services. It will be able to serve involuntary inpatients from Eastern Washington and offer short-term crisis stabilization, Escarda says.


Mark as Favorite

Kristin Robbins: Painted Frames @ Entropy

Through Feb. 28, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • or

Samantha Wohlfeil

Samantha Wohlfeil is the Inlander's News Editor, a role she moved into in April 2024 after working at the paper as a news writer since 2017. She oversees the paper's news section and leads annual special sections, from our Sustainability Issue to our philanthropy issue known as Give Guide. As time allows, she...