Social Work Today E-Zine

The reported death of a woman at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn, NY, illustrates the dire need for more public services for individuals with mental illness, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

According to news reports, a woman who was suffering from agitation and psychosis, was kept waiting in the emergency room for almost 24 hours because the hospital did not have a bed available for psychiatric patients. She collapsed onto the floor and then lay there for approximately one hour before emergency room personnel tried to revive her. Tragically, she died.

"The question is how and why hospital personnel could ignore a person who fell to the floor in an emergency room and stood by or walked around her while she died," says APA President Nada Stotland, MD. "Still, the lack of emergency services for psychiatric patients is only one part of an overall healthcare crisis, which extends to and includes mental health services.

A lack of funding has led to an ongoing shrinkage of the number of hospital beds for these individuals. At the same time, many times hospitals have no emergency room physician on duty that is qualified to handle mental health problems. The difficulty of accessing needed services may only intensify the sense of stigma many patients feel in seeking help for a psychiatric problem in the first place.

"The time to intervene is long before a person finds herself in the position of needing emergency help from a hospital that is ill-equipped to care for her," Stotland says. "The tragedy is that we know how to help these individuals recover and remain productive members of society; this suffering is needless and ends up costing society as much or more than adequate care would cost. Our society is failing to provide the most basic safety net for our most vulnerable citizens."

— Source: American Psychiatric Association