Op-Ed Piece Submitted to the AJC - December, 2007

 

The Mentally Ill Need Grady

 

By Rep. Pat Gardner

 

In our discussions about Grady's future, an outstanding public asset has gone unnoticed. The Mental Health Service for adults and children, including the Psychiatric Emergency Service at Grady Health System, deserves recognition as a Center of Excellence.

Grady's Psychiatric Emergency Room is the premier facility of its kind in our state, both for the quality of care delivered as well as the sheer number of patients it serves every day. Because of Grady's association with both Emory and Morehouse Medical Schools, Grady employs more mental health care professionals than in any other program in the state; more psychiatrists, more psychologists, and more mental health trained social workers and nurses receive training at Grady. An intern or resident looking for the very best hands-on mental health training and research opportunities chooses Grady.

Grady's mental health care follow-up sets the gold standard for our region. The transition from evaluation in the Psych ER to outpatient care in the community is a critical component for effective treatment. For so many of those whose mental illness has caused them to lose control, getting proper dosages is a first step to recovery, and treatment in enhancing coping skills and community reentry are necessary next steps. This continuity of care is a key element.

Imagine what would happen if this Psychiatric Emergency service were to close or even to reduce its access to care. Persons with severe mental disorders will either go somewhere else, or they won't go anywhere at all for care. If they go somewhere else, such as another nearby general hospital without the psychiatric coverage 24/7, they go to a facility unable to provide the level or type of care needed and a facility less than eager to assume that financial or psychiatric burden. If they don't go somewhere else, we simply tolerate having severely disturbed persons walking our streets, a tragedy for those individuals with possible repercussions for the community's health and public safety.

I visited the Psych ER two weeks ago. There were twenty or so patients seated in a room off by themselves, waiting in an observation area. They had been evaluated and found in need of longer-term mental health care than a psychiatric emergency service can provide. They were waiting to go to Atlanta Regional Hospital, but Atlanta Regional was full. It was on diversion. Grady's outstanding psychiatric inpatient units were also full, and there were more patients in the waiting room needing to be evaluated. Based on these observations, the system is already under such strain that it needs more resources, not fewer.

Recent articles in the AJC by Judd and Miller have documented the desperate need for trained professionals. We need to train more, not fewer, mental health professionals. We need Grady's Psych ER and its comprehensive Mental Health Center as a model for treatment and for its ability to treat those with serious mental illnesses who have nowhere else to turn except our streets or our jails. We should recognize Grady for the major public resource that it is while we still have the time. Why would we not treasure it as a Center of Excellence?

• Rep. Pat Gardner (D-Atlanta) represents the 57th District (Atlanta and DeKalb County) in the Georgia House of Representatives. Contact her at 604 Coverdell Office Building, Atlanta, GA  30334; by phone at 404-656-0265 or by e-mail at pat@patgardner.org.