Query

[York Minster]

I'm curious about mental hospitals in America in terms of suicidal patients. If a patient enters an er with suicidal ideation, they will be admitted to the psych ward. But what if the ideation does not cease and their insurance or medical card only pays for a certain amount of time in the hospital? Do they stay in the ward indefinitely? Are they transferred somewhere? Are they responsible for payment so that if they ever do get out they now face bankruptcy? Or, if they stay indefinitely and are not expected to pay, why would homeless people not pretend to be suicidal? It's not hard to pretend, and even if doctors are skeptical of you, in the CYA age of the early 21st Century, they couldn't let you go due to their responsiblity if you did kill yourself.

[glennjridge]

as far as bodily medical emergencys in our hospitals they cant refuse you medical care when you come in with a life threatning issue. anotherwords even if you dont have money they wont leave you to die they have to treat you when you come in.

I think it works the same way with mental issues. they will send them to a treatment center.the problem is is think they have a rule on how long they can keep you.I think the problem is its like a carousel, they come in run them thru some doctors and decide them good enough to release.

unfortuatly its long been considered a shoddy system as you see the problems everyone now and then when one of these crazy people gets out and immediatly say,pushes someone in front of a subway train. as far as details how long they can keep them, I really dont know, I think 6 months is the norm and then I think they shuttle them to different ones, some insurance maybe some non profit charity types.

[York Minster]

I think the problem is its like a carousel, they come in run them thru some doctors and decide them good enough to release.

Right, not to mention run them through some medications that the patient knows very little if anything about, that ususally cause worse symptoms, and take 2 to 3 months to work if they work at all, yet the patient gets asked if the pills are helping by day 2.

The thing is, what if you keep saying, flat out, "if you release me i will end it". I can't imagine if you were firm and clear about it that they could release you? Or do they?

[glennjridge]

I dont know. I do know in this society its possible there is a big difference between "If you release me I will kill myself" ...and..."if you release me I will kill other people".

the first ones kinda moral issue. you really cant stop someone if they really want to kill themself you only really have so much rsponsibility to them,plus how serious could they be about killing themself if they tell you they will, which might cause them to stay locked up longer and unable to actually do so.

I think your adverage person who gets put there do so not wanting to be there, so I imagine they have sufficent room to keep someone there if they seem soooooo serious about harming themself.

and I imagine they have people there who can diagnose someones personality to know if they really mean it. they can only do so much and have so much responsibility to someone elses life..

[York Minster]

plus how serious could they be about killing themself if they tell you they will

This I agree with.

and I imagine they have people there who can diagnose someones personality to know if they really mean it

Personality is an incredibly subjective concept, if it exists at all. While with bipolar (if it exists at all) can be determined by looking at a set of symptoms, personality is even more open than that. The paradigms, behavioural, cognitive, psychoanyaltic, etc don't really agree too well what traits are and what they are looking for. With bipolar, there are different options for treatment, but the general symptoms are the same. If they want to know if you are lying are not, it's a guess, even if an educated guess, nothing scientific. Psychology is an institution much more than a science.