Mental health crisis in focusS.C. looking for way to get patients out of ER By Yvonne Wenger (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
COLUMBIA — The state is trying to get a handle on what medical providers classify as a crisis: holding mental health patients in emergency rooms when they have no other place to go for treatment. The Delivery of Behavioral Health Care Services Study Committee, made up of 10 legislators, is being established this summer at the direction of a joint resolution that calls for a list of recommended solutions to be presented to the full Legislature by February 2010. "This is a very serious problem in South Carolina," said Rep. Vida Miller, D-Pawleys Island. "We have neglected this segment of our community. We have neglected this illness." Miller, who represents Charleston and Georgetown counties, said mental health patients often turn to emergency rooms to get treatment, which aren't always equipped to handle such illnesses. The state Department of Mental Health completed a study in 2006 that found the agency had 501 fewer beds in 2005 than it did in 2000, said John Hutto, director of the agency's office of public affairs. To put the need in perspective, Hutto said, national statistics show 20 percent of the population at any given time has a diagnosable mental illness. That would mean an estimated 800,000 people in South Carolina have a mental illness. The beds were lost for a number of reasons, including budget cuts, remodeling and the agency's hardship in offering competitive pay, Hutto said. The Mental Health Department is offering a variety of crisis services to try to reduce the number visiting emergency rooms, Hutto said. In its current budget, the agency set aside roughly $5 million toward that effort by opening 10 beds at a crisis unit in Charleston and offering a mobile crisis unit for the area. Also, the agency is providing short-term emergency housing for homeless patients and buying medicine for them to stockpile between visits. Still, Dr. Keith Borg, assistant professor and research director of emergency medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, said mental health services in Charleston are "massively overburdened." Even so, he said, the Lowcountry is in better shape than elsewhere in the state. "No question it's a crisis," he said. "South Carolina is by far not unique. This is one of the most pressing problems we deal with nationally." The S.C. Hospital Association pushed for the creation of the study committee. Jim Head, senior vice president, said the problem of behavioral health patients being held in hospital emergency rooms is long-standing and something the hospitals have been focused on solving for the past five years. "At times it seems to get better, and then it spikes back up," Head said. "The most important aspect of this issue is that these people aren't getting the care they need." Reach Yvonne Wenger at 803-799-9051 or ywenger@postandcourier.com. |
Article tools |
|
Notice about comments: Charleston.net is pleased to offer readers the ability to comment on stories. We expect our readers to engage in lively, yet civil discourse. Charleston.net does not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. Responsibility for the statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not charleston.net. If you find a comment that is objectionable, please click "suggest removal" and we will review it for possible removal. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Use and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website. Full terms and conditions can be read here. |
Comments
This article has 8 comment(s)
Posted by guidedbystewart on September 2, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
RW, You are truely a fascist, being a liberal is not illegal no matter how much you want it to be.
Posted by guidedbystewart on September 2, 2008 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
An emergency room is not the type place to hold someone that has mental health problems. They do not have the capable staff, and an emergency room does not have the structured environment that is important for a person that is having a mental health breakdown. If I had mental health problems, this would be one of the last states in the country I would want to live in……I’m sure my last two comments are going to get responses from the juvenile conservatives that post on this site.
Posted by FindingMyself on September 2, 2008 at 1:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
As both a newcomer to SC and someone who works in the mental health field, from what I've seen, I agree with Guidedbystewart that the mental health field here is HORRIBLE. It's even made me consider moving again to another state that has better options.
Posted by STREETLAW on September 2, 2008 at 3:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And ER's like Roper Hospital don't even have patient monitoring machines that work properly.
Posted by lillycollette on September 2, 2008 at 4:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_M...
The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA) (also known as the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act) (Public Law 88-164) was an act to provide Federal funding for community mental health centers. The purpose of the CMHA was to provide for community-based care, as an alternative to institutionalization. However, some states saw this as an excuse to close expensive state hospitals without spending some of the money on community-based care.
http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/history.htm
History of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health
In 1985 a U.S. Justice Department's critique of the S.C. State Hospital said conditions there were "flagrantly unconstitutional." … Joseph J. Bevilacqua, Ph.D., became the state commissioner of mental health in 1985. Under his leadership, the department supported the (1963) view that patients treated in the community do much better clinically. People with mental illnesses need and require close family and community support. They get better faster and stay better longer when they receive services in their community …
Posted by STREETLAW on September 2, 2008 at 5:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Truth of the matter is their are no doctors who are imminently qualified to treat mental disorders. It would not matter how many beds they have.
Patients do better when treated in the community? Probably a statistical inference due to the fact such patients are no longer under daily observation in a clinical setting. Send them home and after a while they wind up in a nursing facility for the rest of their lives, when they might be rehabilitated with proper treatment.
Out of sight, out of mind. Until of course they hurt themselves or someone else.
If there was every a case for socialized medicine it it is this gross failure in the system where mental health is concerned. With 20% of the population suffering from mental health problems it is obviously an epidemic of disasterous proportions. At least 100 beds are needed in the low country alone. And they were needed yesterday.
Posted by STREETLAW on September 2, 2008 at 8:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)
RW I will assume you have never had to really count on what you call the finest system in the world when a loved ones life is on the line, or your own health for that matter. You would be one of the first in line at a lawyers office. And if the system has worked for you, you are one of the lucky ones. I personally lost a brother, sister, and good neighbor to hospital error.
I detest socialize anything but I think if you spent enough time in research you might find some countries do it better. Maybe what they have is not socialized medicine as we know it.
Truth be known the system we have now is socialize, but without the necessary oversight. Medicare, medicaid and insurance fraud rip off billions in taxpayers dollars while hospital related deaths continue to rise.
Stupidly yours, SL
Posted by tatrskin on September 2, 2008 at 9:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
as a mental health worker, now dealing with troops overseas, this subject speaks right to me. there is a massive need for looking into the way mental health is overall looked at and dealt with. these issues have been here and are nothing but being more and more wide spread and answered need to be found for these people looking for help.
all people looking for any medical help physical or mental should have proper care opportunities before harm to themselves or the others around them.
thank you