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Forcing my participation via government edict (removing my right to choose) because you can't get my participation any other way? Have you no Right to my participation that you must resort to legal coercion?

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A man hearing voices walked into the emergency room of downtown's California Hospital Medical Center on a recent night and said he wanted to hurt somebody. Doctors gave him medication, put him in a hospital bed and called the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department.

A mental health worker placed the patient — who had a history of schizophrenia — on a psychiatric hold. But despite multiple attempts to find somewhere to treat him, he spent 3 1/2 days in the emergency room.


With a sharp decrease in psychiatric beds and with mental health staffs spread thin across the state, emergency rooms increasingly have become costly and ineffective baby-sitting services for mentally disturbed patients in crisis.

The economic downturn and budget cuts are exacerbating a chronic problem, creating added safety risks at hospitals and placing a burden on already crowded emergency rooms. Meanwhile, hospitals are increasingly facing a dilemma: They can't find proper facilities to care for the patients yet can't release them to the streets.

"We are inundated with these patients," said Marc Futernick, California Hospital's director of emergency services. "The design of the system is that everyone gets taken care of in a timely fashion. The system is broken."

That breakdown can be costly. Hospitals get stuck caring for uninsured psychiatric patients; the public has fewer emergency room beds available; and the mentally ill often do not get the therapy and medication they need.

"It's a public safety, a public health and a humanitarian issue," said Brian Johnston, director of emergency services at White Memorial Medical Center. "This has been going on for years, but it has become more acute because there are even fewer beds and even fewer dollars."

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ORIGINAL: erieangel

One thing about this story is that when people like the man depicted in this story were locked away in the state hospital system, taxpayers didn't seem to mind so much about "supporting" them. "Out of sight, out of mind". But Reagan, while governor, began the push to close the state hospitals, the mentally ill now largely live in the community, have apartments, support themselves via SSI or SSDI and part time jobs, they walk the streets talking to themselves and frightening their neighbors. Many of them are homeless. Many of them have co-occurring drug and alcohol problems.

One of the biggest industries that is almost always hiring, even in this economy, is that of social work, particularly in the field of psychiatric rehabilitation.

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ORIGINAL: Real0ne

yes just like property taxes EVERYONE PAYS AND PAYS AND PAYS AND PAYS AND PAYS for unrealized gains.

it prejudices the healthy and takes away their right to choose as well as those who use herbals and home remedies.

fuck your commie agenda.