Psychiatric Bed Shortages

Psychiatric hospitalization is the treatment option of last resort for individuals with acute or chronic serious mental illness who need intensive, inpatient care – the equivalent of the cardiac ICU for heart patients.

When people in psychiatric distress are uninsured, poor, charged with crimes or meet state criteria for civil commitment because they are violent/dangerous to themselves or others, publicly supported state psychiatric beds are where they are admitted for treatment.

From their historic peak in 1955, the number of state hospital beds in the United States had plummeted almost 97% by 2016. Even when private hospitals are included, the number of psychiatric beds per 100,000 people in the United States ranks the nation 29th among the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Without access to hospital care, acutely ill individuals deteriorate, families and caregivers buckle under stress, ERs fill with acutely ill patients waiting for a bed to open and police and fire responders find themselves increasingly diverted to mental health calls. By 2014, 10 times more people with serious mental illness were in prisons and jails than in state mental hospitals, a circumstance widely attributed to the shortage of beds to provide timely treatment.

Psychiatric bed shortages affect everyone.