Every day is an emergency’: The pandemic is worsening psychiatric bed shortages nationwide

The pandemic is worsening psychiatric bed shortages nationwide The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the availability of inpatient psychiatric beds, which were already in short supply. Megan Thielking STAT

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically cut the availability of inpatient psychiatric beds, with facilities across the country forced to reduce their capacity to meet social distancing requirements, stem outbreaks of the virus, or repurpose psychiatric beds to care for the surge of Covid-19 patients.

The crisis — combined with years of mental health care budget cuts, rising demand for mental health care, and an existing shortage of both psychiatric beds and providers — appears to have put health care systems on a wartime footing.

“Every day is an emergency,” said Vincent Carrodeguas, CEO of Miami based Banyan Health Systems. “I hate to say it but our job right now is to normalize a crisis that has been going on for nine months. Calls to our centers are up 40 to 50% and our vulnerable behavioral health population has skyrocketed.”

The pandemic and the parallel economic crisis have fueled new concern about access to mental health care. An estimated 40% of American adults have a condition involving mental illness or substance misuse. In June, federal health officials reported nearly 11% percent of adults surveyed seriously considered suicide during the past 30 days. ...

It was hard to find a bed before Covid-19,” said Steven Winn, CEO of Springfield, Mass.-based Behavioral Health Network. Winn estimated the state has lost 300 pediatric and adult psychiatric beds in the past year. Western Massachusetts, a region home to more than 800,000, lost all of its remaining pediatric psychiatric beds by June. Nationwide, the availability of inpatient psychiatric and 24-hour residential treatment beds has declined significantly over the past five decades, according to John Snook, executive director of the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center. ...