Published
It is not always so easy to tell who is violent prior to admission. Don't know how your hospital is, but ours tends to "forget" to tell us some pretty important things at times. Once the resident has been admitted it becomes nearly impossible to get rid of them again. The psych hospitals might take them, but demand that you agree to readmit when their treatment is complete (seldom does the treatment make any real difference anyways). Other facilities won't take them either. I threw a fit at work several years ago when I was informed they were taking a 50ish convicted male sex offender - Told the ED he had gone totally insane himself to think this was reasonable.
Here is the link. Sometimes Yahoo! changes their articles so fast they can be hard to follow and find.
"Several forces are behind the trend, among them: the closing of state mental institutions and a shortage of hospital psychiatric beds. Also, nursing homes have beds to fill because today's elderly are healthier than the generation before them and are more independent and more likely to stay in their homes."
My first job as a new grad in 1984 was working in a ward for convicted well would have been convicted if they could have been tried), mentally ill patients with medical problems. These patients were crazy and really did not know what they had done. The horrible part was that the facility was closed by the State. Many of the pts ended up on the streets, some with family members who could not handle them and hospitals that had no idea at that time what to do with these people. It was sad and scary.
My first job as a new grad in 1984 was working in a ward for convicted well would have been convicted if they could have been tried), mentally ill patients with medical problems. These patients were crazy and really did not know what they had done. The horrible part was that the facility was closed by the State. Many of the pts ended up on the streets, some with family members who could not handle them and hospitals that had no idea at that time what to do with these people. It was sad and scary.
And these people are now some 25 years older (ie: probably elderly).. guess where they are at now?
The Elderly deserve far better
The Mentally ill deserve far better
I know legalize marijuana and prison populations will drop 30 percent. We can then change all those spaces into nice healthy psychiatric fully funded facilities. And the taxation of marijuana would fully pay for all of it to.
Neveranurseagain, RN
866 Posts
I read this article and was dismayed to find that SNF's are becoming the new dumping ground for the mentally ill, often with disastrous results. The lack of beds/pysch facilities for the mentally ill seems to be driving this trend. Pretty scary! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090322/ap_on_re_us/mentally_ill_nursing_homes
Opps! MI should be mentally ill, not myocardial infarction! This is why Joint Commision did away with abbreviations!
Can one of the mods change the title to Mentally Ill instead of MI?