Author: Jeff Fenske Page 223 of 614

From: Anchorage Daily News

Anchorage’s emergency rooms are overflowing with psychiatric patients, a creeping problem that intensified this past year as a result of staff shortages at the state-run psychiatric hospital and a resurgence of meth use in the region, officials say.

Between July and January, there was a sixfold increase in the number of times officials at Providence Alaska Medical Center alerted police and paramedics that it was unsafe to continue bringing psychiatric patients to the hospital’s psychiatric emergency room and its main emergency room. While Providence doesn’t turn patients away, police and paramedics will seek to take the patients to other area emergency rooms first.

General emergency rooms aren’t built for psychiatric patients, who often stay for days on end and need special care, including around-the-clock monitoring. Officials and advocates say it creates a high-risk environment for caregivers and poor standard of care for patients.

“We’re really experiencing what I would call a crisis in our emergency departments, because of the number of psychiatric patients we’ve had to board,” said Becky Hultberg, the president and chief executive of the Alaska State Hospital & Nursing Home Association.

The influx also means longer wait times and more disruption for other emergency room patients with non-psychiatric problems.

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