RALEIGH -- A statewide analysis shows that the long waits for people with mental illness in North Carolina's emergency rooms are growing even longer.
On average, people in the midst of a mental crisis can expect to languish in a medical hospital's emergency department for 2.8 days before gaining admission to a state psychiatric hospital. That is up about four hours since a similar study released last summer by the Wake County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
The situation is even worse in the western third of the state served by Broughton Hospital in Morganton. There, patients seeking admission faced an average wait of four days.
"Emergency departments and crisis units are not a therapeutic environment for paranoia, out of control thoughts, emotions and personal nightmares," said Gerry Akland, president of Wake NAMI. "As a civilized society, we must come together and solve this problem."
The NAMI study relied on data collected by the state Department of Health and Human Services between July and September, the most recent available. It does not reflect the repercussions from the pending closure of Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, which stopped accepting patients in December.
Akland said requests seeking more up-to-date data from the state have been unsuccessful.
Wake County, which does not have any community hospitals with a psychiatric unit, was among the worst affected, the study showed. WakeMed's emergency department led the state in the number of patients who endured "extreme waits," with 13 people waiting a week or more. Nearly half of the 1,917 patients placed on waiting lists for state hospitals during the three months covered by the study were seeking admission to Central Regional Hospital in Butner, the facility constructed as a replacement for Dix.
People who are wait-listed for a state psychiatric hospital are not always admitted to one. Some are admitted to a community psychiatric hospital and others are just sent home.
Wait times have been building since the state halved the number of beds in its mental hospitals as part of an ill-fated reform effort initiated in 2001. To try to address the problem, the state Department of Health and Human Services is now funding the operation of more than 100 psychiatric beds in community hospitals across the state.
In a media conference this month, DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler said tougher standards for private outpatient care providers would reduce the strain on the state hospital system by making those inpatient facilities a safety net of last resort. He also touted the addition of the new inpatient beds in private hospitals.
Akland said the additional beds are helping, but the state's own data show that they are not enough.
"The effect is overshadowed by the increasing numbers of severe mentally ill patients needing hospitalization," Akland said.
