New Med Center Targets Depression

Hopefully they will have the foresight to treat people who only have medicaid and medicare. They are the ones who usually suffer untreated. Or else they learn to self-medicate.

The University of Colorado at Denver will open a new medical center focusing on depression with the help of a $3 million grant from a retired investment banker whose mother suffered from bipolar disorder.

The new facility — the second of its kind — is scheduled to open this August at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, the school announced today. The first depression center was opened at the University of Michigan in 2001 and similar facilities are being planned at more than a dozen universities nationwide.

"The ultimate goal is to bring depression out of the closet and to have outreach and treatment," said benefactor George Wiegers, a New York investment banker who now lives in Vail.

"The country should have an infrastructure for depression, such as it has for cancer."

The center, located at the former Fitzsimons Army Hospital, will focus on research and combining different medical disciplines to address depression.

The Rocky Mountain News