It is not news that there is a severe shortage of both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care for children in Central New York. The lack of capacity became even more acute after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, the community’s inability to solve this problem has come home to roost at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.
Nurses and doctors at Golisano are sounding the alarm about children with severe behavioral problems abandoned in the emergency room by their overwhelmed caregivers or by police, for lack of anywhere else to bring them. Some become violent, injuring medical personnel and posing a security risk to other patients…