A Facebook video of a woman in a hospital gown escorted outside of a hospital went viral Wednesday. She was left at a bus stop without personal belongings in the cold. The hospital has since responded to the incident but the video started a conversation around treating mental illness.
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Medical professionals say behavioral health-related emergencies have impacted emergency departments in the state. Maryland has the worst emergency department wait time in the country.
According to data by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it takes someone in Maryland an average of 53 minutes waiting in the emergency department before they're seen by a medical professional.
The former president of the Maryland Hospital Association told ABC2's Mallory Sofastaii last year that it's not an increase in patients that's the problem, it's an increase in the type of patient flooding the health care system.
“We've actually seen an 18 percent increase in mental health and substance use-related emergency visits when other emergency department visits are going down,” said Carmela Coyle, the former president and CEO of the Maryland Hospital Association.
And on top of that, there's less community resources. Since 1981, there's been an 80 percent decrease in state psychiatric hospital beds and the beds at available hospitals are 99.7 percent at capacity, according to the MHA.
“These are conditions that are so difficult to address,” said Coyle. “As hospitals, we're often the ones catching an individual at their most acute, most vulnerable time but what we need is to strengthen our system so we can hand those patients back off and create a clear care pathway back into the community, back to wellness.”
Click here to see our in-depth coverage of emergency department delays in Maryland.
