Mass. Parents Report Early Logjam In Care For Mentally Ill Kids

It usually happens in spring, the annual back-up of mentally ill kids who need beds in Massachusetts psychiatric hospitals or residential care centers.

But Lisa Lambert, executive director of the Parent/Professional Advocacy League, which works on behalf of mentally ill children and their families, reports that already this fall, the waits are unusually long and the resulting crises severe. (Imagine: a child in severe emotional distress, stuck in an Emergency Room for days. Or stuck in a hospital far from home, because there are no local beds.)

What's happening? It's not exactly clear. Might it be that state social service agencies are putting kids into residential care more than usual in the wake of the Jeremiah Oliver case? Is it a longer-term effect of having more community-based treatment for kids? Community care is widely considered a good thing, but it could mean that because children in crisis stay at home longer, their needs are more acute when they're brought in for care. Lambert writes that the bottom line is that no one seems to be taking responsibility for alleviating the back-up, and the situation is getting dire:

At my office, the phone and emails are nonstop. Often, they spill over to the weekend. A few days ago, we heard from a mom whose 14 year old son had swallowed a bottle of Tylenol. This was his third suicide attempt. She rushed him to the emergency room and got medical treatment right away. But once that was completed, he needed inpatient mental health care. “You have to wait, his mother was told twice a day. “There are no beds.” She’s a smart and proactive parent and was trying every avenue to budge a system that told her there was nowhere to admit her son for treatment. When she called us he’d been waiting for four days and counting.

We are not the only state grappling with this issue. Last summer, the Sacramento Bee reported that hospitalizations for California children and teens had spiked 38% between 2007 and 2012. Nationally, hospitalizations have also increased but at a slower pace than California. Connecticut also reports an increase in children and teens coming to emergency rooms in psychiatric crisis. Data from the state’s behavioral health partnership shows that the number of children and teens stuck in emergency rooms rose by 20 percent from 2012 to 2013.

When a child is put in either a medical (not psychiatric) bed or waits in the emergency room, it is referred to as “medical boarding” or just “boarding.” We are hearing a new term this year: boarding at home. Parents are told their child needs a hospital or other acute care bed (which means they are a danger to themselves or someone else) and then told the child will be “boarded at home.” Unsurprisingly, parents worry both about that child and any brothers or sisters. This happened to Kelly, a mother of an 11 year old boy, Her son was aggressive, diagnosed with a mood disorder and had been hospitalized before. She would have to find someone to care for her five other children if he waited days in the ER. She agreed to “board” him at home and her worst fears were realized when he attacked his younger sister. Charges of neglect were filed against her for failing to protect her daughter and she is angry and frustrated. “I did everything that was recommended, she said. “And now this.”

Read the full post describing the current pediatric psych-bed back-up here: Acute mental health care for kids: A mirage in Massachusetts?