Shortage Of Psychiatric Hospital Beds Shifts Burden Of Care To Ill-Equipped Hospitals, Jails
“Even if you don’t care about the human rights side of the issue, this is a hugely expensive and inefficient way to provide care,” said John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Sonoma County Struggles To Fill Gaps In Crisis Care For Mentally Ill
When a psychiatric patient shows up at the emergency room at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, the staff quickly removes anything dangerous before placing them in a treatment room. Cables and heavy objects are stowed away. A cart with essential instruments — scalpels, needles, sutures and commonly used drugs — is wheeled out. ...A “sitter” or security guard is placed near the doorway to watch over the patient 24 hours a day. If the patient can’t be managed with medication, they are restrained to prevent them from harming themselves or others. This scene is repeated more than six times a day, on average, at Memorial — Sonoma County’s largest hospital — which logged nearly 2,500 encounters with psychiatric patients in its emergency department last year. (Espinoza, 8/5)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Most Of Sonoma County Psychiatric Patients Sent Out Of County For Hospital Care
Buried in the U.S. Senate’s now-stalled effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is legislative language that mental health care professionals have been seeking for years — an exemption to a rule that prohibits federal dollars from being spent on “Institutions For Mental Disease.” It’s a rule as old as the landmark 1965 program establishing Medicaid — the government-provided medical insurance for the poor and disabled — and it bars federal dollars from being used for adult patients treated at certain kinds of psychiatric facilities. Known as the IMD Exclusion, the rule was drafted at a time when mental health professionals, advocates for patients and some federal lawmakers were trying to end the notorious era of psychiatric asylums. (Espinoza, 8/5)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Was Quoyah Carson Tehee Failed By Sonoma County’s Mental Health Care System?
Untreated, Quoyah Carson Tehee’s schizophrenia was essentially a death sentence. The night before he hanged himself at his home in Cloverdale on Dec. 10, 2015, Tehee was plagued by paranoid delusions. The 37-year-old stood in the rain with no shirt and shoes, wielding a pitchfork over his head, screaming and yelling. He threatened his neighbors and accused them of taking his cigarettes. He threw a rock through their car window and assaulted a cyclist after knocking him off his bike. ...His life and death illustrate the challenges of caring for people with severe mental illnesses in Sonoma County, as well as the toll it takes on the people who love them. (Espinoza, 8/5)
In other mental health news —
Los Angeles Times:
Mental Illness And Homelessness Are Connected. But Not How You Might Think
Even as Los Angeles starts a $1.2-billion homeless housing construction program, residents from Temple City to Venice are fighting to keep homeless projects out of their neighborhoods. But since 1995, chronically homeless mentally ill people — a widely shunned subgroup — have been living in Santa Monica’s Step Up on Second apartments, a block from the tourist-friendly Third Street Promenade and close enough to the beach to feel the salt air. (Holland, 8/7)
San Jose Mercury News:
Santa Clara: Family Sues City After Police Killed Their Son
Underneath the red, purple and yellow poncho from Colombia bearing the name of her slain son, Amanda Sommers’ shoulders trembled. The mother of Jesús A. Geney, a 24-year-old man killed by Santa Clara police while suffering a mental breakdown, stood in front of Santa Clara City Hall on Saturday to announce her family is suing the city. (Giwargis, 8/5)