Real Psychiatryby George DawsonMay 29, 2015
This report from George Dawson and what just happened there is breath of fresh air in a time when psychiatry and Mental Health could use one. This situation in Minnesota is similar to that throughout the country, and it looks as if Minnesota is going to do something about it:
$46 million package will ease shortage of pediatric beds and add preventive services.Minneapolis Star Tribuneby Chris SerresMay 29, 2015
This is true all over the country:
For years, children who exhibit highly aggressive or violent behavior in Minnesota have been forced to drift from one short-term hospital stay to the next, often returning to their families heavily medicated but with their illness still largely untreated. Most small group homes lack the staff to handle their extreme behaviors, and inpatient psychiatric wards at hospitals are often too crowded to treat them for more than a few days.
Says George Dawson:
This is not surprising to any psychiatrist. This is the end product of managed care rationing and it occurs whether the patient is a child or an adult. It happens when businesses and governments collude in providing some bastardized version of psychiatric care. It happens when psychiatrists in this case are ignored. When state officials ignore psychiatrists. When psychiatrists who are trained to treat aggressive and violent behaviors are not allowed to do their jobs. After all, why would anyone with aggressive behavior because of a mental illness be turned away from a psychiatric unit? Aggressive and suicidal behavior are the main reasons that psychiatrists exist today. It is what we do. Let us do our jobs. So far this is one small victory for children’s mental health advocates and my cap is tipped to them. But to reverse more of the problem we need to acknowledge what it is and it is managed care or more specifically their marketing word for mental illness – behavioral health.Let’s get rid of it entirely.
Amen…
Just stop old man, no one listens.