A Wintry Mix of Patients

Throughout The United States this past Winter, admitted patients and their families waited hours to days in emergency departments for in-patient beds. Few of them waited longer or suffered more than those waiting for a psychiatric bed. The number of patients needing hospitalization for acute psychiatric conditions and behavioral disturbances frequently exceeds the capacity of psychiatric services to admit them and increasingly exceeds the capacity of psychiatric EDs to provide continued care until beds become available.