Rachel Jones wonders how much longer she and her son would have waited in a Halifax emergency room if he hadn’t escaped and tried to kill himself.
Jones brought her 24-year-old son to the QEII Health Sciences Center last month because he was depressed, manic and suicidal.
CBC News is not naming Jones’ son, but his mother is speaking on his behalf as he recovers.
When they got to the hospital, Jones said she told the triage nurses that her son talked about killing himself by jumping off a building.
“I assumed it would be clear [forward]” Jones said in an interview. “Show the doctor and then send him to the psych team so he’s not sitting in the waiting room with people.”
It wasn’t the case. They sat in the waiting room for more than seven hours, Jones said, before her son asked to go to the bathroom.
Nova Scotia Health did not respond to questions about protocols surrounding open houses at the hospital. (Robert Short/CBC)
When he was out of sight of his mother, he found an unlocked door and finally made his way to the roof.
Security found Jones’ son, handcuffed him and placed him in an interrogation room where he was held for several more hours.
He didn’t see a psychiatrist until about 18 hours after they first arrived at the hospital, Jones said.
“I don’t quite know why we had to wait so long… I could have lost my son and [so would have] his brothers and his father,” she said. “I don’t know how we would have recovered.”
Problem with the process
Jones, who has worked as a registered nurse since 1994, said she doesn’t blame the staff.
His problem, he said, is with the process.
According to Nova Scotia Health, an emergency department physician assesses a patient experiencing a mental health crisis and then decides whether to see a crisis response physician or a member of the psychiatric team.
Jones said doctors are so busy that a nurse or other health professional should be able to make referrals to the psychiatric team to help people access care more quickly.
“It’s bureaucratic and it’s harmful to young people, seniors, whoever, who have serious mental health issues and come into emergency to wait all this time.”
Reducing waiting times
An advocate for the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers agrees that doctors shouldn’t be the only ones who can assess people entering hospitals with mental health issues.
“They don’t have to be in control of everything,” N Siritsky said. “This model of mental health is based on this outdated, doctor-driven pharmaceutical concept.”
Siritsky said allowing social workers, who are already in hospitals, to step in as soon as a patient enters the hospital would ease the burden on doctors and reduce wait times.
“Getting a social worker who can do an initial assessment, contribute to some of the treatment plans in a way that can help the provider when the provider finally comes and reduces the amount of time the doctor actually has to spend with the patient. ” they said.
N Siritsky of the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers says there are too many barriers to accessing mental health care in this province. (CBC)
“The social worker can provide some of the counseling, support and resources not only to the person, but potentially to family members or friends who came with that person.”
Siritsky said changes like this need to be part of a larger shift in mental health care delivery in Nova Scotia toward a collaborative and proactive approach to patient care.
The goal, Siritsky said, would be to prevent people with mental health problems from having to go to the hospital in the first place.
A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health said in an email that mental health and addictions urgent care services saw a 30% increase in demand for services in 2020 and a 10% increase in demand for non-urgent services. urgent
Questions remain
Rachel Jones said she still doesn’t understand why there was an open door to the QEII emergency room.
“This was a near miss of great magnitude and I wonder if this has even been discussed,” he said. “Are they looking at it? Are they checking it?”
Nova Scotia Health did not respond to questions about protocols around open houses at the hospital and whether they have made any changes since this incident.
Jones said she’s not sure what she’ll do if her son experiences another mental health crisis. She said the experience has traumatized her son and left her worried and angry.
“I’ll always be afraid that he just feels like he’s a problem in society because of the way it was handled.”
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