Psych patients face day-long waits in hospital ERs
July 4th, 2008
Associated Press story on MSNBC:
Experts say the case of Esmin Green, whose death in a Brooklyn hospital waiting room was caught on security video, is an extreme symptom of a national crisis facing patients with mental illness. Green (at left in 2007 photo) had been waiting more than 24 hours when she toppled out of her chair and lay writhing on the floor in view of hospital staff until she died, unattended, an hour later.
Emergency rooms, they say, have become all-purpose dumping grounds for the mentally ill, with patients routinely marooned a day or more while health care workers try to find someone to care for them.
A survey of hundreds of U.S. hospitals released last month by the American College of Emergency Physicians found that 79 percent reported that they routinely “boarded” psychiatric patients in their waiting rooms for at least some period of time because of the unavailability of immediate services.
Average routine waiting times were reported to range from eight hours to more than 24 hours.
(CNN photo)
See also:
- Mental patient dies, ignored, in hospital waiting room
- Children with mental illness endure long hospital waits
- A psychiatrist examines Esmin Green’s tragedy — Chicago Tribune
- Woman who died on hospital floor called ‘beautiful person’ — CNN
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