"N.H. woman waited 10 days in ER for mental-health bed, family says" by David Sharp Associated Press September 12, 2015
PORTLAND, Maine — A 19-year-old New Hampshire woman experiencing a mental health crisis spent 10 days in the common area of an emergency room in Maine because no beds were available in treatment facilities, the woman’s mother said Friday.
Maureen Cahill of Northwood, N.H., said she desperately searched for treatment options across five states while Chyann Cahill-Hassett remained in a special wing of the emergency room at St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston. Her daughter was moved to the hospital’s psychiatric floor Thursday after WMTW-TV reported on the family’s plight, Cahill said.
Cahill-Hassett ended up in the St. Mary’s emergency room after lashing out at a treatment provider in a residential program, then running away and getting lost in the woods, her mother said.
Police used a K-9 unit to locate her, then brought her to the hospital.
The extended emergency room stay was harmful to her cognitively disabled daughter, exposing her to things she should not have seen, including a drunken man whose pants kept falling down who called her ‘‘sweetheart’’ and tried to sit on her lap, Cahill said Friday.
‘‘We had so many gains with this wonderful young woman. What we have lost in those 10 days is substantial,’’ Cahill said from her New Hampshire home.
At this point I wrote on my Globe "I guess I don't get out enough. What the hell has happened to this country? It's become a rotted hulking carcass stinking of death."
It can't care for its children -- sorry for being old-fashioned, but 19 is still a child to me in many ways -- but it can care for illegals (or not) and Obummer's refugees while pouring more money into the war machine that created them.
What if this government is mentally ill?
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I picked the story back up here:
The biggest obstacles to swifter long-term treatment are a lack of inpatient psychiatric beds in Maine, along with the displacement of regular patients at the state psychiatric hospital in Augusta by those coming from the state prison system, said Paul Rouleau, director for behavioral operations for St. Mary’s Health System.
In the politically-incorrect language of yore, they emptied out the loony bin.
There is no attempt to be funny there, and I'm typing this with sadness in my heart. We went through all this back with Reagan and in Northampton.
Yup, just turn the mentally ill that need help onto the streets! The FBI will have loads of patsies to choose from at least!
Other factors also come into play. Infection contributed to several beds being offline, he added.
It's not a sterile environment?
Cahill said she moved her daughter to Maine to place her in a residential program because similar services were not available in New Hampshire, which has been working to improve its mental health infrastructure since settling a lawsuit with the federal government in 2013 over inadequate services.
The residential program in which her daughter was enrolled is willing to accept her back after she is stabilized, but it is unclear how long that will take, Cahill said.
‘‘She’s in a safe place. She will be getting evaluated. It’s a process to see what the next step is. It’s just unfortunate that you have to fight these battles,’’ she said.
I'm glad things are okay now.
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