Jail and failing mental illness

Last edited Mon Jun 4, 2018, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

The way we treat people afflicted with mental health issues is just unbelievable. As a psych nurse I work long hours - can be anywhere from 12 to 16 or sometimes even 18 hrs when I'm on shift. Many of my patients have been to jail or prison, have addiction issues. Its such a frustrating thing for me that I almost never hear the powers that be talk about mental health until there's a tragedy such as a school shooting. Outside of that crickets. I don't hear anything about funding for mental health.

Most of my peers are leaving the industry. Myself included. Not totally. I won't leave mental health totally. I just cannot work in a hospital setting. I have a few months left to complete my masters program to become a nurse practitioner and I will continue to work in mental health in private practice settings. The hospital settings have become far too dangerous to practice due to lack of funding. I hate it. I truly hate it for the patients. This article is about what is going on in the jails. It is not as bad in the hospitals, but trust me, my peers working in hospitals are frustrated with lack of funding in our hospitals, underfunding, overworked nurses, techs due to not having enough staff. My co-workers and I are saying its time for us to rise up and do the same as the teachers - but its not that simple - who will take care of the patients. We can't just walk out on our patients.

[link:https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-jails-louisiana/|

East Baton Rouge Parish Prison is where Louis Jonathan Fano, afflicted with bipolar disorder and haunted by demons, found himself on Halloween Eve 2016 after fleeing a Greyhound Bus and wandering city streets naked and crazed.

Booked into the jail on six misdemeanor charges, Fano, 27, slit his wrists hours later. Then he was sent to solitary confinement, where he spent 92 of his 94 days imprisoned with his thoughts.

Midway through his jail ordeal, the parish handed responsibility for inmate medical care to a for-profit firm that decided Fano was “exaggerating his condition.” On January 18, 2017, it ordered him taken off his antipsychotic medication.

Two weeks later, the onetime veterinary student, who crafted letters to his mother in longhand, hanged himself