RALEIGH -- People with mental illness are still languishing in North Carolinas hospital emergency rooms for days, unable to get psychiatric treatment.
A study released Friday by the Wake County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness found that, on average, patients who need admission to state psychiatric hospitals waited 2.6 days.
Of the more than 3,000 people on a waiting list in the first six months this year, at least 212 people had to wait more than a week, according to NAMIs analysis of state data.
Another 900, nearly a third of all those seeking admission, went home after waiting nearly two days without getting a bed.
Emergency departments and crisis centers are not a therapeutic environment for paranoia, out-of-control thoughts, emotions and personal nightmares, said Gerry Akland, the president of Wake NAMI, an advocacy group. As a society, we would not condone this treatment for our pets. It is time for the state of North Carolina to solve this problem.
As part of a 2001 reform effort, the state Department of Health and Human Services halved the number of beds in state psychiatric hospitals in favor of a plan to treat patients through private treatment providers.
But despite hundreds of millions in taxpayer money spent, there have never been enough private psychiatric beds available to meet the swelling need for impatient treatment for chronically ill patients, who often lack private health insurance. Deep cuts to the states mental health budget during the ongoing recession have also caused the reduction of state hospital beds, making matters worse.
An internal state study last year of conditions in nine emergency rooms found that patients with mental illness awaiting admission to a state facility were often handcuffed and sometimes Tasered by police or hospital security.
State officials tout the $29 million spent to help fund the addition of about 100 new psychiatric treatment beds in community hospitals scattered around the state.
We are all concerned about North Carolinas ability to provide appropriate care for residents of the state who need mental health services, most especially for individuals who are in crisis, said Lanier Cansler, the states DHHS secretary. We are making progress but the progress is restrained by the limited availability of funding, particularly in these difficult economic times.
But Akland said the states own data on how long patients are waiting shows the current efforts are nowhere near enough to meet the numbers of people needing treatment. He expressed concern for what will happen if the state follows through with the closure of Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh.
Opened in 1856, Dix is the oldest of the states four government-run psychiatric hospitals. Its planned closure was blocked by a lawsuit in 2008, but that injunction was lifted by a judge last year.
The state budget approved by legislators in June did not include any money to keep Dix open for the next year, and instead invested another $9 million in the effort to shift patients to private treatment beds. However, no closure date for Dix has been announced yet. The hospital recently had its accreditation renewed by a national quality assurance commission.
The critical need for beds in our state psychiatric hospitals continues to spiral out of control and thousands of North Carolinians are suffering, Akland said. It is time for our state legislature and our governor to do more than plug holes in a broken mental health system that has been repeatedly underfunded.
