Really? Can't we be nicer? Objecting to sending those in mental health crisis directly to jail.

Hi, it's been a while.  I have been ranting in other venues, and caught up a bit in the All-Trump-All-The-Time phenomena.  So my latest thing to rant about is hospitals that send patients to jail when they don't have beds.  I don't mean people who've committed crimes, I mean people who are in crisis, who are presumed to be a danger to themselves or others.  Here are some of my thoughts:On Psychology Today's website, I wrote "A simple solution to the bed shortage? Unfortunately, Jail"  The link to that isHere.Over on Clinical Psychiatry News, I did a little more research on the topic and spoke with the reporter, one of the doctors, and the Rapid City Sheriff. See "Mentally Ill? Go Directly to Jail"The link to that isHERE.But I've learned that it's not just in Rapid City, South Dakota where it's an issue -- oh, and the sheriff there is apparently refusing to take these patients -- but other states have these issues as well.  My friend, Pete Earley the mental health advocate has been kind enough to share my outrageHERE. On Facebook, I've noted:When we submitted our book proposal forCommitted, our editor told us we had to take a stance and the message had to be something more than be kind to patients. Lately, I'm thinking that "Be kind to patients" is not such an obvious thing in our crazy world. Last week, I wrote an article about a hospital in Rapid City SD that announced their overflow psychiatry patients would be held in jail (--I resea...
Source: Shrink Rap - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: blogs