Inpatient Committee Meeting Minutes
January 4, 2023
10:00-10:50 am
The meeting was called to order at 10:00 am.
Attendees: Dennis Hopkins, Michael Davis, Sr., and Shirley Davis
We revisited the 4 topics we discussed in November and added suggestions.
1. There still needs to be a list of available hospital beds calculated and made available to emergency departments around the state. Now that 988 emergency teams are in place, they also will need to know where to take people.
- Use same technology to track beds.
- Request that DMH or Public Health to ask for numbers be collected.
- Mandate that hospitals cannot hold back beds for insurance purposes.
- Armed guards being used in hospital ER to watch mentally ill patients.
2. Illinois needs respite care for youth so that 988 crisis teams have a place to take youth who do not need to be hospitalized but cannot return home.
- Suggest council looks at the Texas law about respite are for youth and funding by looking at the patients' medical plus emotional needs.
- Increase number of group homes.
- Offer psychosocial rehab to help youth get on their feet.
- More respite centers for youth.
- If youth needs to leave home of origin they need someplace to go.
3. People deemed unfit to stand trial are languishing in jails around the state because there are no available beds. There were 105 people in jail unfit to stand trial at the last count.
- People cannot get care so if they have committed a crime they are incarcerated.
- Unfit to stand trial but need treatment to make them able to stand trial.
- Forensics program is a good program, but we need it to be revised.
- Increase payment for mental health beds.
4. People are still staying in the emergency departments of hospitals because there are no available beds, or they are disconnected from knowing where to look for them.
- We need a no-decline option to keep hospitals from discriminating.
- Set aside two or three beds specifically for mental health so patients can stay comfortably until an inpatient bed is found for them.
- If we give you a license to be an inpatient psychiatric unit you must set aside a few beds for emergency purposes.
- Not including those people who are too dangerous for the hospitals, they go to jail, but they need to receive appropriate care.
The meeting closed by unanimous consent at 10:50 am.