Mentally ill Flood ER as States Cut Services

Shameful. So much for healthcare reform. Well at least we have a payroll tax cut extension for two months. That should solve the problem. Or maybe we should listen to the Conservatives and Tea Partyers. They would say people flooding emergency rooms are lazy good for nothings. It's their fault they don't have a job. Suck it up. They should follow the example of Wall St. bankers. Look how well they're doing. You don't hear them complaining:

Across the country, doctors like Sullivan are facing a spike in psychiatric emergencies - attempted suicide, severe depression, psychosis - as states slash mental health services and the country's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression takes its toll.

This trend is taxing emergency rooms already overburdened by uninsured patients who wait until ailments become acute before seeking treatment.

"These are people without a previous psychiatric history who are coming in and telling us they've lost their jobs, they've lost sometimes their homes, they can't provide for their families, and they are becoming severely depressed," said Dr. Felicia Smith, director of the acute psychiatric service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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