CLEVELAND — The News 5 Investigators have discovered you are waiting longer and longer in local emergency rooms. And it gets even worse for those suffering from mental health issues.
When Mark Colella was just 20 years old, it began.
“You start thinking you’re somebody else. Or you think the CIA is after you,” he said.
Colella found himself experiencing manic episodes with delusions of grandeur, strange, intense energy and racing thoughts.
“There’s not like societal brakes on what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re just kind of like doing whatever you feel like doing in the moment.”
Colella told us one time he hopped a fence at the ballpark in Downtown Cleveland and ran the bases just because he wanted to do it all while having a manic episode.
“Luckily, most of the police officers have always taken me to the hospital and not to jail,” Colella said.
Lucky, but not so lucky, because he said that when he would get into the ER, sometimes the staff would lock him in a room.
“I started taking my bed on wheels and I rammed it against the door several times until the door opened up,” Colella said.
Colella showed us a picture of one ER visit. He smiled for the photo, but he said, in reality, he was hallucinating, seeing demons. However, even with that, he told us he waited 72 hours in the ER before getting treatment.
“They couldn’t find a bed for me,” said Colella. “They were going to send me to Columbus, I think, at one point.”
WHAT ARE THE WAITS IN OUR AREA?
So many emergency rooms in Northeast Ohio are having these kinds of problems.
News 5 Investigators uncovered the longest wait times for traditional visits in our area's emergency rooms. Watch:
RELATED: What Northeast Ohio hospitals have the longest ER wait times? We found out.
When patients went to the ER for physical problems, from check-in to leaving, the longest wait we found was four hours, 15 minutes. But for mental health issues, in the top five longest wait times, it’s eight to nine hours at University Hospitals facilities, then even nearly 15 hours at Aultman Hospital in Canton.
News 5 Investigators also looked at what ERs added the most minutes, more insight on why patients are waiting longer these days, and what some of the proposed solutions are. Watch:
RELATED: Why some Northeast Ohio emergency room wait times have gotten longer
“The longer we wait, the potential we run to feel a little worse and symptoms to get worse,” said Angela North.
She is the executive director of Geauga County’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She said part of the problem is the way even some health professionals still view psychiatric patients.
“Those living with mental illness aren’t scary. They’re not bad people,” said North. “Just like anyone else they have a condition and there are symptoms to that condition.”
HOW MUCH LONGER FOR PSYCH PATIENTS?
As we dug further into the data, we found every hospital we looked at had longer wait times for psychiatric patients than those with physical issues. Sometimes it is three, four, or five hours, or more, on average.
“We do have a deficit in staffing all across the nation,” said North.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Dr. Robert Trestman is from the American Psychiatric Association.
“The resources needed in the community are unlikely available,” said Trestman. “And so they end up languishing in an emergency room.”
He told us nationally, there aren’t many mental health professionals in ER departments.
“All too often, the emergency medicine doctors are obligated to try and provide care, and they frequently don’t feel comfortable doing it, nor are they appropriately trained and skilled in it,” said Trestman.
He told us solutions to this problem could include additional funding for more staffing and more space for psychiatric treatment.
North agreed and suggested Ohio hospitals adopt what some in Arizona and Florida are doing.
“Have specified doors that people can go in, specified facilities that people can go into to have that emergency care right then, right there, limited wait, if at all,” she explained.
Colella now works with NAMI Geauga County as a group facilitator and co-hosts a podcast promoting mental health support and care.
He said that just having someone to sit with psychiatric patients in the ER could go a long way. That, he said, would have helped him when he was banging his bed into doors, begging for someone to listen.
“The whole thing there was nobody was communicating with me,” said Colella. “And I think that’s the key to the situation when you’re in the ER.”
Neither Aultman Hospital nor UH would answer our questions on camera. They sent statements instead.
Aultman Hospital:
“When patients arrive to the ER, they are screened and triaged to ensure those with the most critical need receive care first. This process includes patients presenting with behavioral health concerns. Our goal is to properly care for all patients seen in our ER. Since Aultman Hospital does not have an inpatient behavioral health unit, Ohio law, in certain circumstances, requires Aultman Hospital to discharge behavioral health patients to a qualified inpatient behavioral health facility. The ability to discharge behavioral health patients is dependent upon bed availability, which varies daily. Like many hospitals, we are experiencing delays in transferring patients who need behavioral health placement due to a shortage of available beds and facilities. We continue to collaborate with community behavioral health organizations to assist with this patient population and remain committed to support patients in crisis while providing the best care possible.”
University Hospitals:
“University Hospitals operates a regional network of state-designated trauma centers to meet the needs of patients in Northeast Ohio. We’ve seen a surge in demand for emergency services dating back to the pandemic. Our dedicated doctors, nurses and other staff work around the clock to deliver life-saving care as rapidly as possible. All emergency visits are triaged, so the most urgent cases always go to the front of the line. We work with our EMS, and fire department partners to care for their patients and get them back into service as quickly as possible. We have also opened dozens of urgent cares around the region because not every incident needs to go to the emergency room. We are proud of the compassionate, life-saving care we provide 365 days a year.
UH’s regional trauma network includes seven Level 3 Trauma Centers: UH Elyria, Geauga, Lake West, St. John, Parma and Portage medical centers, as well as Southwest General Health Center. UH Cleveland Medical Center and UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital are designated Level 1 Regional Trauma Centers. UH Rainbow is Cleveland's only Level I trauma center for children and adolescents and has been a continuously verified Level 1 pediatric trauma center by the ACS for 25 years.”
