N.H. struggling to solve a psychiatric problem thats been years in the making
Four years ago, mental health workers called a press conference to ring the alarm. On any given day, nine people sat in New Hampshire emergency rooms waiting for a bed to open at the state psychiatric hospital.
“Access to timely mental health care in New Hampshire is at a crisis point,” Ken Norton, the director of the state chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness, proclaimed then.
Last Monday, 68 people were waiting – the latest record high. No one sent a press release, no one called a news conference. The wait list for admission to New Hampshire Hospital has become a new normal in state mental health care, much to the dismay of advocates. It means patients who are suicidal or in psychiatric crisis often languish for days in the hallways and holding rooms of hospitals without the treatment they need.
“What other illness would we allow people to suffer like this without treating them?” Norton said last week. “It’s absolutely inhumane.”
Read more: http://www.concordmonitor.com/mental-health-community-divided-over-how-to-solve-wait-list-crisis-8303330