HOSPITALIZATION: A TRUE STORY!

Contributed by Ms. Marianne Clayter, NC CANSO Board of Directors

". . . having to be transported in handcuffs by sheriffs . . . to hospitals outside of the area I live in is in itself traumatic while I try to handle the trauma that brought me to the crisis services."
- M.Clayter _______________________________________________

With all the debate going on these days about medical hospitals needing to add psychiatric units to their facilities, I want to write a few thoughts about my personal experiences.

I am a consumer who has Medicare due to receiving social security disability. It is with Medicare that I entered a stand along psychiatric hospital for the first time. Now with Medicaid I cannot be a patient at this same hospital again.

Medicare pays 80% of inpatient hospitalizations and has a maximum cap on the number of inpatient days allowed in a psychiatric hospital facility. I used up my allotted days a long time ago.

So, where does this leave me? This leaves me in Greensboro, NC, Chapel Hill, NC, Durham, NC, Rocky Mount, NC, etc. With bed allocation the way things are now, crisis staff must call hospital after hospital often getting refusals. This leaves the states four psychiatric hospitals to pick up the tab.

WANTED: PSYCHIATRIC UNITS
IN MEDICAL HOSPITALS!
A year or so ago I emailed the three CEO’s of Raleigh’s three hospitals asking them to add psychiatric beds to their facilities. I received no responses. I saw a statistic recently that said there about 1,000,000 people living in the Triangle area. Obviously with more and more people moving to this area, there is a need for more medical care and more specialized care. I also saw another statistic recently. One in four North Carolinians have mental illness or will develop mental illness. With the economic situation the way it is, and with the insurance industry struggling, it just makes plain sense to add psychiatric units to already existing medical hospitals.

My having to be transported in handcuffs by sheriffs in their vehicles to hospitals outside of the area I live in is in itself traumatic while I try to handle the trauma that brought me to the crisis services. And, with being out of telephone range with family and friends, it makes hospitalization out of town even more difficult to cope with. The good news is that I have only had to stay at out of town hospitals for short periods of time.

Keeping mental health patients in facilities in the areas they live helps expedite treatment and stabilization so that we can get back to our lives as quickly as possible, stay in the areas where we have supports, and build the supports we need.

Marianne Clayter