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#1 |
Demiurge
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 36,368
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to the psych ward/hospital doesn't surprise me.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/03/hos...ath/index.html The staff will be the scapegoats, but it is really the system that is the problem. Parkland hospital, one of the most famous and respected public hospitals in the USA--the psych facilities in the ER are pitifully small, with patients (and until recently children) sleeping on the floor with sheets over their heads. Periodically the people are woken up by the staff to see if they are ok. The psych inpatient ward in the Dallas VA was shut down after a spate of suicides, at least one of them actually committed inside the hospital. All of psychiatric services are housed in the old hospital, while all the other services are in the new hospital. It's a complete dump. They already spent 100k trying to "suicide-proof" the hospital. Again, it's a demonstration of how psychiatric services are the last priority. Just this past week, one of the largest hospitals, if not the largest hospital, shut down it's psych ward. Baylor Hospital. Why? They said that they didn't get enough business. They only had 9 beds, and only 3 were filled on average and were usually transferred out by the hospital to other hospitals within 48 hr (this is all in the Dallas Morning News). That ward had been cut to 9 beds, from many more. I know a doctor who worked there for many years as a consultant psychiatrist. He told me the hospital wanted to shut down the psych ward for many years, but for accreditation/reputation reasons kept it open as a sham. They couldn't get any psychiatrists to cover psych call, so they started having to pay thousands of dollars to a few psychiatrists to cover call. Baylor says it is because of lack of patients--despite a bed shortage overall in Dallas. It was because they didn't want to have a psych ward in the first place, but they are smart enough to not say this publicly. Indigent patients at yet another psychiatric hospital sit side-by-side in lazy-boy chairs overnight on 24 hour observation. They are triaged, with the fundamental principle being that there are not enough beds to hospitalize all of them. So they are triaged. The sickest ones are then hospitalized, the others are let go. So does it surprise me that there is a psych hospital with dozens of patients waiting 24 hours to be seen, and one of them falls unnoticed and dies? No doesn't surprise me at all. While the staff is blamed for not caring, the truth is that American should be blamed for the not carting part. |
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#2 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 9,483
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This phenomenon was one of the main things that shut down King-Drew in LA.
Every now and then, if you go down 6th street and cut through Skid Row, you will see homeless people on the sidewalk....in hospital gowns. I guess after a day or so, the hospitals discharge them and leave them back in the street.
__________________
Fitter. Happier. More Productive. "Everyone is against me. Everyone is fawning for 3D's attention and defending him." -- SeattleUte |
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#3 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,589
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Not that I disagree with your point--it IS a huge problem. I just can't pass up on an opportunity to be difficult. Last edited by ERCougar; 07-05-2008 at 08:31 PM. |
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#4 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,589
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![]() Quote:
It is an extremely dangerous situation and it is no surprise to me that people die. |
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