Something we may have forgotten

susiestar

Roll With It
It may be strange to just post this way, but one thing I forgot, and many of you may have forgotten, is that the Baker Act is not the only way to get a child into the hospital.

When Wiz went into the psychiatric hospital the first time he was not an immediate danger to himself or others or property. He was calm, sad, and rather disbelieving.

With your doctor's help a child CAN be put into the hospital. The doctor has to find a bed, and if there are no beds or an emergency comes up you may not get a bed right away. I know TimerLady has been through this, as have others.

When we give advice to others we often say that the child has to be a danger to self or others. We forget and leave out that the child's doctor CAN order the child inpatient.

After Wiz went in the first time we learned we could have put him inpatient before. The doctor was waiting for us to say it was that bad. We had NO CLUE that kids could be put into psychiatric hospitals here (that beds for kids existed in our state) or that we just needed to say something to our doctor. The doctor felt bad after he realized this. He thought we knew that he could do that.

So for all of you wondering if hospitalization is needed or would help - talk to your doctor. Ask if it can be ordered, or what HIS criteria are to order inpatient help.

There ARE also hospitals you can take a very ill child to who is an immediate danger. Knowing where those are and how to get there is a good idea.

Just thought that I would put this out there. If I forgot maybe someone else did also. Or maybe a newer member didn't know.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Thank you for sharing that, Susie. Even if someone's said it before, it's certainly worth repeating. All too often when we are in crisis we forget about these pearls of wisdom people have shared over time.
 

mog

Member
Thank you for posting that information. I wish someone would have told me back when. The whole reason that difficult child even got into the "criminal" eye site is that a therapist that he was seeing told us to call the police to transport to hospital if we were in "crisis" She suggested that even the smallest thing to call. When we did- the police refused to transport him and they charged him with destruction of property. Wish I knew then to NOT listen to her and just have the doctor do it.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
mog - we often suggest calling the police for transport during a crisis because a difficult child in a rage may be unsafe for a parent to transport. The difficult child could open the door and jump out while the car is moving, grab the steering wheel and try to kill everyone, hit/hurt the driver, etc...

THAT may be the reason behind the therapist's instructions. To call the police for minor things makes me think she got the reason for the police call confused. I am sorry things ended up with your son facing criminal charges.

I am glad this helps someone.
 

klmno

Active Member
Good reminder, Susie. difficult child's psychiatrist didn't believe in doing that though so he always put it back on my shoulders. (I liked most everything else about him so I worked around that.) But I did learn from one of the evaluating psychiatrists at the ER that being a danger to self or others is not the only criteria that can get a child/adolescent admitted to a psychiatric hospital, at least in this state. They can get admitted for "deterioration of functioning". It's pretty hard, if not impossible, to get someone TDO'd here though for that.
 
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