Radu Teodorescu: Mentally ill Kansans still waiting for help
As a hospital psychiatrist I have seen my share of pain and suffering around the holidays – from abandoned parents in squalor to rejected children, and from relapsing homeless substance abusers who do not belong in the Christmas picture to the psychotic and agitated who for some reason or another are deemed dangerous to society or themselves.
But the danger qualification is utterly meaningless in the context of the chaos in the Kansas mental health system.
Our emergency room houses people who are court-ordered because they are homicidal, suicidal or delusional and who have to wait for a bed at the state hospital for days. Imagine being in the “safe” room without windows for five days when you are already agitated and psychotic.
We have people on the medical floors who need to be released after an overdose, because there is no facility in Kansas to treat them involuntarily and they refuse to sign into a psychiatric unit. Almost every week we have to make an educated guess on how high the risk is, and release some troubled folks who will possibly do this again. We try to get in touch with families, to make sure there is follow-up in the community. But in the end, we have to take their word for it.
State hospital beds in Kansas are at the lowest number ever because of overcrowding and underfunding, and a consequent scandal that involved a Medicare audit. Another frustrating problem are the patients with dementia or other incapacitating ailments, and who do not have Medicaid and clog the hospital beds waiting for placement. The wait time is months in some cases.
Gov. Sam Brownback has said he does not want Syrian refugees in Kansas. He fears radicalization and attacks on America. But the people I’ve described, those struggling every day, are more of a real danger to themselves, and others. When will they get any help?
Radu Teodorescu is a psychiatrist who practices in Topeka.
This story was originally published December 28, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Radu Teodorescu: Mentally ill Kansans still waiting for help."