Does the Crossroads region need an emergency mental health unit?
A psychiatric hospitalization should be the last resort of a comprehensive community mental health treatment approach for 2 reasons. First, because patients should be treated in the “least restrictive setting” and second, because hospitalization is the most expensive way to treat someone.
Texas is ranked in the lowest places with a grade of D, by the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), a mental health advocacy group, in terms of services for mental health. Earlier this year, Texas officials were announcing more cuts in state psychiatric hospital beds (Houston Chronicle, 2/11/2010 , Cherokeean Herald, 2/17/2010 ) among other decreases in spending. Patients from all over the state, who need psychiatric hospitalization will end up to wherever psychiatric beds are still available.
Patients with psychiatric illness tend to have higher rates of medical illness with more visits to doctors and hospitalizations. Nationally, 16 percent of the jail population is incarcerated for offenses related to mental illness, mental retardation, or substance abuse. Of these, 60 percent to 75 percent are usually jailed for nonviolent offenses. The financial cost to the community for caring for these patients is thus shifted among the different agencies.
Ideally, a comprehensive community mental health program should include enough psychiatric coverage to assess patients as often as necessary to prevent crises from becoming “emergencies,” seeing a counselor/psychotherapist to help with simple life skills that we usually take for granted, having more crisis services done in the community with quick access to the treating psychiatrist to prevent ER presentations, using more Assertive Community Treatment, facilitate transfer of care from similar programs in other counties, not having to be on a waiting list to be admitted for services (rather than having year-long lists at times), having a jail-diversion program, having respite and group homes for patients who need more assistance with daily functioning, having both a partial hospitalization program and an inpatient hospitalization, having access to affordable psychiatric medications, and even having integrated psychiatric-substance abuse and psychiatric-medical clinics to better serve the needs of patients with co-occurring illnesses…
So, does our crossroad region “need” an emergency mental health unit? It would be great to have one, but without any significant changes in the way the community funds and cares for its patients with psychiatric illness, it is like the “need” to offer open heart surgery, when we do not provide adequate resources for access to prevent and manage cardiovascular diseases.
One Response to “Does the Crossroads region need an emergency mental health unit?”
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As someone who has been hospitalized in Victoria when there was a unit I say yes it was nice to be held locally. It makes it easier to get through tough times when you can recieve frequent visits from your family or other support people.