Service Groups and Faith Alliance Mental Health
Feb 16, 2021
Attendees:
Nicole Bernard, Officer Kenneth Ragland, Niki Miller, Danica Coleman, Mindy Varkevisser, Cheryl Stallings, Toria, Britney Williams, Kim Adcock, Jim Ahler, Terri Reed, Maria Cervania, Sonya Edwards, Joi Whittington, unknown
Haley Gray was our speaker today. Haley is a successful business woman, a best-selling author, holds an MBA from Duke’s prestigious Fuquay School of Business, founded Women’s Entrepreneurial Network Group and is Founder and CEO of Fiercely Marketing. We are grateful that Haley made time to speak to our group and share her experience navigating the health care system after her daughter’s horse-riding accident resulted in a traumatic brain injury and subsequent psychosis. We were impressed by Haley’s willingness to share the personal details of her family’s struggle and we admire her courage to speak out and advocate for change.
Haley’s daughter, Laura, was in a horse riding accident in Dec 2015 when she was 17. She was able to complete the competition and fly home. When her family picked her up at the airport, they knew right away that something was wrong. Her conversation was nonsensical. “It was like Alice In Wonderland” or “the worst acid trip.” Laura was hospitalized and the family was forever changed.
Laura was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and immediately the gaps in our mental health system began to be exposed. The doctor who diagnosed Laura with a TBI told the family that TBI’s do not usually lead to major psychiatric issues. Since then, Haley learned how very wrong that doctor was and how incredibly common it is for psychiatric issues to occur after traumatic brain injuries.
Since that day, Laura has had 18 hospitalizations; each a result of an attempt to commit suicide or homocide, all while still under psychiatric care. Laura often has delusions and some of them have resulted in attempts to harm or even murder her family. This left her family sleeping with one eye open or in shifts. She was not able to return to high school because she was unable to hold her thoughts together. She received additional diagnoses of Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, and autism.
Major deficits in the number of beds in North Carolina’s psychiatric hospitals led to several stays in emergency rooms for weeks at a time. In one instance, Laura stayed in a room in a
hospital emergency department for 7 weeks waiting for a bed in a psychiatric hospital! It is important to note that the psychiatric rooms in emergency departments are nothing more than holding cells. They are empty except for a bed and maybe a rubber chair nailed to the floor. There are no windows so no natural lighting and visitation is restricted. “Staying in a room like that is enough to make anyone crazy.” Often their insurance company would insist Laura needed to be discharged, only for her to become suicidal or homicidal within days of release and return back to a hospital. One time, Laura was released from the hospital into an outpatient program. The outpatient program refused to continue treating her because her psychosis was “distressing other patients.” There was no place for Laura to go.
Central Regional Hospital consistently had no bed for her. Psychosis is not curable. “There is no medication or treatment that would render her not psychotic.” She needed 24 hour awake care because of her homicidal and suicidal tendencies but there was no place for her to go and her family was at a breaking point. It is at this point that many families would kick their psychotic relative out of the house for the safety of others. The link between homelessness and mental illness is perfectly illustrated in this story. Also evident is how untreated mental illness leads to overcrowded prisons and overburdened emergency rooms. Ms. Gray also pointed out that patients with persistent mental illnesses often become drug addicts. Instead of abandoning their daughter, the Gray’s pushed on and persistently advocated for her. This included driving Laura to Central Regional Hospital and insisting they find a bed for her, which the hospital did.
So what is the answer?
Ms. Gray believes that when a patient is discharged from care, there needs to be a solid step-down discharge plan in place to allow the patient to ease back into a normal routine at home. A Continuum of Care is vital to the proper, humane treatment of these patients and for the mental health of their family members.
Ms. Gray also pointed out that several studies have found it is more cost effective to provide proper housing for mental health patients than it is to burden social services, hospitals, and the mental health system. This would increase the number of available beds, save money and improve treatment outcomes.
Finally, Ms. Gray emphasized the need for research and funding for evidenced based treatment, and the willingness for insurance companies to pay for those treatments.
Local policymakers were on the call today and vowed to make necessary changes to improve the mental health care system.