(July 25, 2013) When a patient in the midst of a psychotic episode sought treatment at AnMed Health earlier this year in Anderson, South Carolina, the staff “scurried to find a hospital with enough room for an admission (“South Carolina Psychiatric Patient Stuck 38 Days in ER,” Bloomberg, July 18).”
But all psychiatric beds were full, and “the patient spent 13 days languishing in the ER.”
That wasn’t even the worst case of “boarding” reported by Stephanie Armour. Another patient in need of psychiatric hospitalization waited 38 days.
“Budget cuts for outpatient and inpatient psychiatric care have made the ER the safety net. It’s unreal,” said David Cothran, who directs emergency services at AnMed Health.
Unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. This issue has been growing as states continue to slash the number of psychiatric beds.
South Carolina only has 20% of the beds available to meet the psychiatric needs of its population, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center’s 2012 study, “No Room at the Inn,” and an individual in South Carolina with mental illness is five times more likely to end up in jail than in a psychiatric hospital.
This is just one more example of the devastating impact eliminating public psychiatric beds has on those with the most acute disabling mental illness. We need a moratorium on further public hospital psychiatric bed closures until a sufficient number of beds becomes available so that people with the most profound illnesses are not left “languishing” in emergency departments.
Read our study on the severe shortage of psychiatric beds.
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