Emergency Of The Mind
Corey Rogers became lonely on a recent Saturday night. Then he got frightened. Then his fear turned into increasingly incoherent thinking--on the border of what doctors would call psychosis. Rogers had previously been treated for serious depression, but there were no psychiatric services available this Saturday night. Only when a friend finally called 911 did the police cruiser arrive and deliver him to the local hospital's emergency room. There he sat in a room alone--getting more and more worried and restless and unstable--until a room in the psychiatric ward became available 24 hours later.
The local ERs have become the only option for many of those in the midst of a psychiatric crisis. But the other unfortunates in the waiting room of that small hospital that night probably didn't realize how Rogers's predicament was affecting them personally. A survey released last week by the American College of Emergency Physicians reveals that as more people with mental illnesses are seeking help in emergency rooms, patient care and hospital resources are suffering nationwide. The survey illustrates yet another strain on emergency health delivery in this country. "To the extent that options like halfway houses or outpatient counseling are being eliminated, these people depend on us," says Brian Hancock, president of the ACEP and an ER doctor in Saginaw, Mich. "And the system is overloaded."
Frustration. According to 6 out of 10 emergency room physicians surveyed, the increased use of the ER by psychiatric patients is diminishing access to emergency medical care for all patients. It leads to longer wait times, greater patient frustration, an overworked and unavailable hospital staff, and fewer available emergency room beds. In fact, the report found that ER doctors spend more than twice as long looking for beds for psychiatric patients as for the other patients. And that time could be spent tending to others.
Advocates for the mentally ill have long deplored the lack of services and the cutbacks in public funding that have forced those like Corey Rogers into emergency rooms rather than special settings for those in psychiatric crisis. But this report underscores a point made by many mental health professionals, including Atlanta psychiatrist Patrice Harris: "Often, when people read about the cutback in services for the mentally ill, they think, 'It doesn't affect me.' But, in fact, it does--in many ways." -Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
This story appears in the May 10, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
