I am going to share my friends experience with getting his suicidal 11 year old help. He is a federal police officer and his daughter's mother is a nurse, both have decent health insurance plans. The first problem they ran into was finding a facility with an available bed, then came fighting with insurance as to what is covered and for how long. Meanwhile the child found herself in a facility in Nevada where bullying and fist fights with other patients was common. Let's just say the therapy wasn't the greatest, and parents across the country run into these type of problems. It seems that the good facilities are for the wealthy.
You can look across American and find headlines about these type of issues, in 2022/2023 the New York Times ran a story about parents abusing these facilities and dropping off children that did not meet the clinical requirements to be admitted. There also seems to be very little regulation of these facilities, we just hope that they are doing the right thing and hiring the right people.
The Idaho Youth Ranch just opened a facility in Idaho. I hope and pray they get it right. I sat in a meeting with them and the Department of Health & Welfare, and a few other vested parties before it opened and suggested to make all policies RIGHTS based. In a state like Idaho, where everyone looks the other way when these issues arise, that its just a matter of time before there is a critical incident and the facility is shut down.
Yes we need these facilities, however there is evidence that suggest with the right support group and the right outpatient program patients will do better than peers in a facility. The reality is that some parents are part of the problem for the child too. What is the solution? I vote cameras, Ai, and any thing flagged by the Ai gets sent to the proper authorities to start "due process" for the offender. Upon admission and discharge educate all patients on their rights, as all parents & guardians on their rights.
I actually suggested to St. Luke's to handout upon discharge a copy of the Patient Bill of Rights to all, I don't think they liked the idea, given they have security guards in multiple locations that have escalated situations in emergency rooms, that is a story for another post.
I have more to say about this, this one gets me a little fired up. Some of these kids stand no chance of ever having a happy life. I am happy that I learned to disassociate and split rather than end up in one of these.
Thank you,
Mikey