Teen ER crisis: Overwhelming mental health visits are not for us, docs sayBy Marc Lallanilla
August 18, 2023
The mental health crisis affecting America’s children and teenagers is overwhelming hospital emergency rooms, say doctors.
Parents are bringing in children as young as 5 or 6 years old with psychiatric emergencies like anxiety, depression and suicide attempts — but they’re finding ERs are often unable to help.
“This crisis is only getting worse,” Dr. Willough Jenkins, psychiatrist and medical director at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California, told NBC News. “It’s not getting better.”
Jenkins noted that the number of kids seeking psychiatric emergency care at her hospital has spiked from about 30 a month in the past to 30 per day in recent months.
Children as young as 6 years old arrive in the ER talking about committing suicide.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/18/er-doctors-face-surge-of-kids-with-post-covid-depression-suicidal-thoughts/
