Neon red Emergency sign with an arrow pointing to the left.

Sharing – How America’s Mental Health Crisis Became This Family’s Worst Nightmare

ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

The article’s subtitle below is accurate, and the story they tell is heartbreaking.

An overwhelmed, underfunded system is jamming ERs with patients in psychiatric distress. And sometimes, the consequences are deadly.

They use the story of a man in a mental health crisis dropped at the hospital during COVID-19 when his sister was not allowed to stay with him. He sat there for hours with no treatment available and eventually wandered out of what was supposed to be a secure facility. His body was found a month later, and the family had no idea what happened to him.

This story is the backdrop to a deep dive into the history of mental health facilities in the US and the failure to fund the resources that were supposed to take the place of the asylums when they were shut down. It’s a story of poor insurance coverage, massive run-around to find even a fraction of care, even for a man whose mother worked in the mental health industry, and the eventual failure that led to his death.

It’s also the background to the horrible reality for many patients with severe mental health issues who are “boarded” in emergency rooms for days and weeks waiting for a mental health facility bed to become available, and the rush to get people home to avoid them getting stuck there even when they are not safe.

Most of all, the article clearly shows no easy answers. There isn’t one thing broken in this system that can be quickly turned around and made better. It’s everything: government funding, insurance coverage, a lack of people to treat patients, a confusing and frustrating system to find help, and a system so under-resourced that kids are sent to facilities 5-6 hours away from their parents.

You don’t fix that overnight. You surely don’t fix it by ignoring the system and avoiding talking about serious mental health issues because they make us feel uncomfortable. That’s why people are out here dying instead of getting help.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mental-health-emergency-crowding_n_6657ea33e4b0169dc7595037

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