There’s been a huge spike in the number of people with mental health crises visiting emergency rooms. People who are suicidal, homicidal, psychotic. But ER nurses are not trained to treat mental illnesses and the departments are not designed to comfort, to calm or to keep people safe from themselves or others. And though most people suffering from a mental health crisis are not dangerous or disruptive, some are. Nurses are being punched, bitten, spat at. Medical patients are being treated in the hallways because there isn’t enough room to accomodate them. And mental health patients are spending days, and sometimes weeks or months in emergency rooms, without treatment…waiting for placement at inpatient care facilities.
Here’s an up-close look inside the mental healthcare crisis in our emergency rooms.
