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August 20, 2008
Grady Memorial Hospital faces acute shortage of psychiatric beds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (8/6, White, Miller) reported that Atlanta's "safety-net hospital," Grady Memorial, "is issuing alerts to the Atlanta medical community that it can't take any more mentally ill patients."
Grady currently "operates one of the country's largest psychiatric emergency departments, handling 15,000 to 16,000 emergency visits a year, including children in crisis.
In the past, many patients have been transferred to state-run hospitals after being evaluated and stabilized at Grady," but "those transfers have slowed dramatically as the state mental hospitals deal with their own capacity problems."
Grady's situation "echoes a national trend: a shortage of psychiatric beds that forces people who need them, including children, to be 'boarded' in emergency departments across the country, according to a survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP)." ACEP president Linda Lawrence, M.D., stated, "The lack of access to psychiatric care is creating a very dangerous situation for people with mental illness, and for emergency patients in general."
Related Links:
- "No room for new mental patients," Gayle White and andy Miller, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 6, 2008.
Posted by admin at August 20, 2008 12:51 PM