The Ohio State University Medical Center closed the doors on its comprehensive eating disorder clinic, June 13, that was located on the Harding Hospital campus in Worthington.It will be reopened on Feb. 1 as a new, nonprofit service, entirely operated by Dr. Laura Hill, former director of the Harding Eating Disorder Clinic, at the same location. The decision to close the clinic was made at the end of May, leaving staff and clients with only a couple of weeks’ notice, Hill said.Timothy Moore, administrative director for OSU and Harding behavioral health care and medicine, said that the eating disorder program was losing about $250,000 per year. Because only 50 patients per year were being treated in comprehensive care, the OSU/Harding board eliminated it.Moore said the clinic was treating about 300 patients per year in individual care, which remains open on the OSU main campus.”It is our hope to be able to care for the 300 patients in individual care. We did lose a component but it was a component we just couldn’t afford to operate,” Moore said.Hill, who left her position at OSU to be CEO of The Center for Eating Disorders & Psychotherapy, which is the name of her new clinic, managed to reopen the doors on her own volition.She said, “Thanks to the support of the Columbus Medical Association Foundation (CMAF) seed grants, we are able to offer eating disorders services, prevention and education once again to central Ohio.”She also said she is grateful to the Ohio Department of Mental Health and the Ohio Department of Health, because all of these organizations stepped up to the plate, seeing the importance of needing the eating disorder clinic and backing it.Hill said that the new program will offer comprehensive services, which include family, group, nutritional and psychiatric consultation, outpatient eating disorders treatment, and treatment for other psychological concerns for persons of all ages and economic backgrounds. Once the clinic becomes state-certified to be accredited, which takes nine months to a year, it will be able to offer intensive out-patient daily treatment two hours a day. From there, she said, the clinic will be able to develop day treatment seven hours a day for eating disorders.”Once we have achieved this, the clinic will be the only nonprofit day treatment program for eating disorders in Ohio,” Hill said.Hill stressed the importance of needing a comprehensive clinic dealing with eating disorders. She said eating disorders are complex and require a specialized treatment program for the best outcomes.”OSU does have a general day hospital program, but it is not for eating disorders,” Hill said.Moore said OSU does have a partial hospital, which means the patients are seen exclusively for individual treatment rather than comprehensive treatment. The hospital does not offer overnight or weekend care; the patients are there only from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.Moore said when he announced the decision to close comprehensive services to the media, it was misunderstood that eating disorder services were eliminated completely, whereas in reality only one component was actually eliminated. Hill said OSU has been cooperative in her decision to reopen the clinic. For example, she said OSU is allowing her to rent phone lines to help cut down on the costs.Moore said OSU has been working with Hill over the course of about 18 months.”We have helped her by providing a lease for her in a building on the Harding campus, and we even sold her the furniture that was in the building for her to use,” Moore said.Hill said that in addition, OSU Research Foundation, an agent in helping to receive initial seed grants, is also helping the new clinic receive the CMAF grant.A national study indicated that in Central Ohio there is an estimated 39,500 males and females with eating disorders between the ages of 15 and 50 years old.