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Sen. Blumenthal on surge of demand for mental health care at Connecticut Children’s: ‘What was bad has become worse’

Hartford Courant - 10/8/2021

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal visited Friday morning with staff at Connecticut Children’s as the hospital grappled with a continued surge in demand for urgent behavioral health care and called for deeper investments in pediatric hospitals and suicide prevention efforts.

“What I’m hearing, very graphically and dramatically, is that what was bad has become worse,” Blumenthal said, standing outside of Children’s alongside its president and chief executive officer Dr. James E. Shmerling. “Partly because of COVID, partly because of other factors ongoing like social media, more and more children need emergency care for mental health issues.”

Earlier this week, Shmerling told the Courant that the hospital was at “a breaking point” as it struggled to manage growing demand for its emergency mental health services.

Shmerling said Friday that Children’s had been facing capacity issues before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but that the past year and a half has brought a slew of profound challenges for many children, including from stresses at home due to unemployment, illness and isolation. He noted that approximately one in 500 children in the United States has experienced COVID-19-associated orphanhood or death of a grandparent caregiver.

Last week at Children’s, there were as many as 47 children in Zone C — the area of the emergency department for children seeking behavioral health care, including for suicidal ideation, self-harm and other mental health conditions — which only has the capacity for 20 to 25 children. On Monday, there were about 43 children in the area.

As of Friday, Shmerling said, 41 children were in the emergency department for behavioral health issues and 12 had been admitted into the hospital. The day before, the hospital had transported six children for care at other institutions.

“The children of Connecticut deserve better,” Blumenthal said of mental health services that are stretched thin in the state. “Children should not be treated as second-class patients.”

And while Children’s is struggling with its own deluge of children arriving at its emergency department in crisis, Blumenthal noted that the issue is nationwide.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year that in the first few months of 2021, visits to emergency departments for suspected suicide attempts increased roughly 50 percent for adolescent girls compared to the same period in 2019. And when it comes to mental health challenges, the pandemic has hit young people the hardest.

Urging increased funding for preventive initiatives, Blumenthal introduced the Child Suicide Prevention and Lethal Means Safety Act, of which he is a co-sponsor, which would fund suicide prevention initiatives, expand training for health care providers and centralize safety information for at-risk youth. He also called for better in-school screening for mental health issues, in order to identify children who might need support before they require hospitalization.

He also urged deeper investments in pediatric hospitals, which he said are at a disadvantage for federal funding. Pediatric hospitals receive 30% less than adult hospitals in terms of the federal formula that applies to their funding for training programs, Blumenthal said, and are reimbursed at lower rates.

“We’ve taken measures to correct it, but now with respect to mental health issues, we need to make sure that there is parity in the way that children’s hospitals are funded as compared to adult hospitals,” he said.

Even if hospitals add more psychiatric beds for children, as Children’s plans to do in the next 12 to 18 months, Blumenthal emphasized that the increased staff must also be available and trained to provide care.

“We will be haunted by the psychological effects of COVID on our children for years to come,” he said. “And the investment in our children’s hospitals and in the screening methods of preventing hospitalizations is a real imperative.”

If you are in Connecticut and experiencing thoughts of suicide, call 211 or text “CT” or “HELLO” to 741741. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). Connecticut’s domestic violence hotline is 888-774-2900. Residents looking for more information on youth suicide prevention and mental health can read the CDC’s COVID-19 Parental Resources Kit, and visit www.preventsuicidect.org or gizmo4mentalhealth.org.

Eliza Fawcett can be reached at elfawcett@courant.com.

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