Nearly three years after the state of Illinois agreed in a court settlement to revamp mental health care in prisons and provide better treatment, a judge says the care remains "grossly insufficient."
The draft health care bill has a provision meant to increase the availability of inpatient psychiatric care. But overall cuts to Medicaid could actually lead to even fewer psychiatric beds nationwide.
Dr. Elizabeth Ford treated mentally ill inmates in New York City for more than a decade. It was almost universal, she says, that they had suffered abuse or significant neglect as children.
Psychiatric patients have longer ER stays than patients with physical problems, research shows, and have trouble finding inpatient care and follow-up treatment. Kids can be among the hardest hit.
Jail is too dangerous for many defendants found incompetent to stand trial because of illnesses like schizophrenia, judges say. But psychiatric hospitals are now overcrowded and violent, too.
Napa State Hospital in California added safeguards to protect workers after a psychiatric technician was murdered in 2010. But violence remains a part of daily life at the facility.
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