New London — For most of the last two years, the inpatient psychiatric unit at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital kept several beds empty, even when patients who came to the Emergency Department needed to be admitted after a crisis.

“We had gone down to 12 beds, but we’re now back up to 14 and we hope to get back up to 18 over the next four months,” said Dr. Peter Morgan, L+M’s new chairman of psychiatry. “The demand is there. We’ve had people who came to the emergency room for care and we were not able to accept them because of our limitations.”

Morgan, 46, whose appointment was announced by L+M on Thursday, fills a key position in the hospital that has been vacant since the previous chairman’s departure in 2014. Without a lead psychiatrist on staff, the hospital had only enough personnel to provide care to 12 patients at a time, who would each stay an average of eight days.

Often, L+M psychiatric patients who needed a hospital stay were sent to Natchaug Hospital, 33 miles away in Mansfield, or other facilities outside the area.

“We had to decrease the numbers to maintain quality of care for the patients,” said Deb Merola-Boutin, nurse manager of the inpatient psychiatry unit at L+M. “It’s clear we lost people to other facilities. The goal now is to bring them back. I’m very excited.”

The hiring of Morgan, who spent the last 12 years on the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, is a direct result of L+M’s new affiliation with Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to Bruce Cummings, chairman and chief executive officer of L+M.

Morgan will retain his faculty position at Yale Medical School.

“It is a significant challenge for small hospitals to recruit top-flight talent,” Cummings said. “The affiliation was an integral factor in this appointment, filling a position we’ve had open for nearly two years.”

Gino DeMaio, leader of the region’s leading provider of outpatient mental health services, said the appointment of Morgan and restoration of beds and services at L+M is indeed good news for the community.

“This is phenomenal that they’re doing this,” said DeMaio, chief executive officer of Sound Community Services, which has its main offices on Montauk Avenue.

During an initial meeting, he and Dr. Morgan talked about L+M working more closely with Sound Community Services to transition L+M patients to outpatient services there after their discharge.

“That will help reduce unnecessary re-admissions,” DeMaio said.

Morgan said that in addition to administrative duties, he also will provide clinical care to patients. He is looking to increase staffing in the department to add services, including for those battling drug and alcohol addiction.

“We’ll be looking at a variety of services that the hospital is currently not providing to see if things can be added to help the community,” he said. “I think we need to position ourselves to be able to do that — to expand services as necessary.”

New “intensive outpatient” and “partial hospitalization” programs also may be added, he said. These would provide psychiatric patients with a part-time but intensive treatment and support programs at the hospital.

j.benson@theday.com