Government Run Mental Health Facilities

Government run Mental Health Facilities is designed to care for the mentally ill people within our society. These facilities have set rules and regulations that each patient must fall within. They are required to follow these guidelines, even though every patient’s problem is unique and different from one to the next.

Local Medical Hospitals care for a large percentage of people suffering from a mental illness; their care is to be brief until a Mental Health Facility is found for them. The bureaucracy that must be dealt with makes it hard for these local hospitals to place these patients. Within an Emergency Room setting, it can take up to two days to place a patient. The Medical Hospital has skilled staffing for these people’s needs, however, not for a long-term stay. The patients are in need of a long-term treatment plan that can’t be achieved through an Emergency Room.

When the Mental Health Facility receives a phone call in regards to a patient that needs placement within their care, it takes hours for them to decide if they will take them as a patient. They have to go through the hierarchy of offices before they will give the okay for the patient to be transported. Once the patient has been accepted, there is an immense amount of paperwork that must be completed before the patient can be released from the Medical Hospital care. If the patient shows signs or symptoms of anything else other than a mental illness, the Mental health Facility will deny the approval of acceptance. This could result from a simple headache to an AIDS condition. Because there is a complaint of a medical ailment along with a mental ailment, they will request the medical ailment to be taken care of prior to transport. The set rules and regulations must be followed strictly.

This organization needs a change; the bureaucracy hinders the urgent care these people need. Bureaucracy doesn’t see them as individuals, but as merely cases.