Month: January 2023

Mental health-related emergency department visits and revisits are on the rise among children, study finds



CNN
 — 

Emergency department visits and revisits in children’s hospitals that are related to mental health are “increasing rapidly,” a new study suggests.

Between 2015 and 2020, mental health visits in pediatric emergency departments increased by 8% annually, with about 13% of those patients revisiting within six months, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Whereas, all other emergency department visits increased by 1.5% annually.

Mental health revisits increased by 6.3% annually, but in general, the percentage of mental health visits that had a subsequent revisit remained stable, “which may reflect that the factors associated with revisit did not change substantially during the study period, even as the pediatric mental health crisis worsened,” wrote the researchers, from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and Boston Children’s Hospital.

“However, the significant increase in the raw number of revisits is still concerning,” the researchers added in their study.

The study findings suggest that pediatric mental health emergency department visits and revisits are both climbing, “and identifying patients at high risk of revisit provides an opportunity for tailored interventions to improve mental health care delivery.”

The new study included data on more than 200,000 patients seen at 38 children’s hospitals across the United States between October 1, 2015 and February 29, 2020. The data came from the Pediatric Health Information System, an administrative database of children’s hospitals.

The researchers examined how many visits included diagnoses of mental health disorders or intentional self-harm. They also analyzed mental health revisits, meaning a patient visited the emergency department again within six months of their initial visit.

The ongoing surge in pediatric mental health emergency department visits may be associated with “a combination of factors, including a worsening crisis of pediatric mental illness and shortage of mental health clinicians,”

N.S. announces slate of changes to improve emergency departments

The Nova Scotia government has announced a long list of changes it hopes will improve care at emergency departments, including ways to ensure patients with the most urgent needs get help first, improve ambulance response times and offer more places for people to receive care.

“Our health-care system has been neglected for years, for almost my entire career as a registered nurse,” said Health Minister Michelle Thompson at a news conference on Wednesday. “Government after government of all political stripes has focused on efficiency and cost containment in health care, despite calls from experts and health-care workers that the system was in trouble.

“They were warned that our workforce would retire en masse, chronic disease rates were increasing, and our proportion of the population that was elderly would grow. And the lack of proper infrastructure and human resource investments would leave us in the place we find ourselves in today. But nobody listened.…

“We are investing and we are working tirelessly to reverse the tide brought on by so many years of neglect.”

A woman sits at a desk in front of a microphone. Two Nova Scotia flags hang in the background.
Karen Oldfield, president and CEO of Nova Scotia Health, said the health-care system can be improved ‘if we all pull together with a common goal.’ (CBC)

Karen Oldfield, the president and CEO of Nova Scotia Health, urged people with skills in health care to come forward.

“We’re looking for more help. If you’re a nurse or a nurse practitioner or a physician or any other health-care worker who’s looking for work, rest assured, I’m looking for you. Let us know that you’re available.

“Because we can do it if we all pull together with a common goal: a system that is ready, responsive and reliable.”

Emergency department changes

In order to get speedier care in urgent cases, the government said that it plans to deploy teams led

Health department tell jobless Doctors to look elsewhere



The health department has told jobless doctors to look elsewhere for employment despite the country’s critical shortage of doctors, with barely one doctor for 1 000 patients.

Shortage of medical doctors

Responding to a parliamentary question In May last year, Health Minister Joe Phaahla revealed that the country’s doctor-to-patient ratio was 1:3 per 198 patients and 0,31 doctors per 1 000 patients, and the number of doctors is on the decrease.

Spokesperson Foster Mohale said the health department was fully aware that there are medical doctors who are still trying to find employment after completing the statutory community service.

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He said in terms of the National Health Act, the National Department of Health – in conjunction with the provincial departments of health, took responsibility for the placement of internship and community service applicants.

‘Unemployed doctors on their own’

Mohale, however, said once medical doctors complete their community service, they then become free to seek employment in workplaces of their choice.

“It, therefore, becomes their responsibility to apply for positions at various hospitals under the jurisdiction of the provincial departments of health or in the private health sector. SAMATU’s [the South African Medical Association Trade Union] appeal to medical doctors who do not yet have employment is based on false information.

“At no stage did the department commit to finding employment for medical doctors who have completed their community service,” he said.

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In a previous discussion with the union, the delegation was advised by the department to submit a comprehensive list of such unemployed doctors, full personal details and the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) registration details of each doctor.

Mohale said the department would then share that list with the provinces for them to assist with employment where they have funded

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