Glover said these feelings contribute to a sense of hopelessness, which is one predictor of suicidal ideation. She said she doesn't see this going away in the next year.
From January to April 2021, youth behavioral health visits in emergency departments across the hospital system have increased more than 70 percent over the same time period in 2019. In April 2021 alone, there was a 90 percent increase over April 2019, according to Children's Hospital Colorado.
"Our inpatient behavioral health and mental health resources have been completely tapped during the pandemic," Brumbaugh said. "Those beds have all been full. The supply has not met the demand."
In response, Chief Nursing Officer Pat Givens said the system plans to increase behavioral health capacity at the Anschutz location in Aurora by 50 percent by March of 2022. This includes programs focusing on eating disorder recovery, partial hospitalization and intensive services. The hospital also plans to convert some of the pediatric medical beds to medical and psychiatric beds.
In Colorado Springs, the hospital experienced a 145 percent increase in youth behavioral health visits since January in comparison to 2020. The location currently has six out of 24 beds in the emergency department dedicated for behavioral health.
Chief Medical Officer Michael DiStefano said a few years ago, that number felt generous, but he's seen up to half the patients in the emergency department need behavioral health support.
DiStefano said while the hospital in Colorado Springs needs to increase capacity, that can't be the only focus.
"If we are building beds, acute beds, we are losing the battle against suicide and behavioral health problems with our teens," DiStefano said.
He cited the need for an integrated youth mental health system, one that addresses prevention and outreach resources before kids get to a crisis point and get to the hospital.
Hospital leadership is calling for more flexibility from the state to create partnerships to address these issues system-wide, like the collaborations between hospitals to care and transport COVID-19 patients over the past year.
Brippin-Talls on May 26th, 2021 at 12:23 UTC »
Cut to Ireland in the height of a housing crisis among other things and according to our media and government "cannabis is the biggest danger to our youths mental health"
Fucking clueless.
Kinkyregae on May 26th, 2021 at 10:58 UTC »
At the school I teach at we’ve been virtual most of the year. We just came back to a hybrid model and the few kids who ARE in my class are NOT okay.
They are lonely and just want to interact with other adults and kids. Endless questions about the world (more so than the average elementary student) and they either can’t sit still or refuse to get out of their chair and away from their laptop.
I scrapped my lesson plans for the year and I’m focusing on social/emotional activities like trivia games and silly dances.
RAproblems on May 26th, 2021 at 04:28 UTC »
This is an unfortunate reality that no one wants to talk about. People keep repeating "kids are resilient". They are, but they are human. They are resilient to a point.