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Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Md. youths needing psychiatric care find long waits, drives

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland — The first time Jeannine LeMieux’s daughter was hospitalized for a psychotic episode, she was only 8 years old.

LeMieux took her daughter to a hospital emergency room near her home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where it was determined that she needed to be hospitalized. Her first admission was to Sheppard Pratt, a privately run psychiatric hospital with child and adolescent inpatient units in Towson, nearly a two-hour drive away.

“They didn’t do anything,” said her daughter, now 19. “I just remember a kid that smacked me in my face one time.”

To maintain the confidentiality of a minor’s medical history, LeMieux’s daughter’s name is being withheld.

Over the next 10 years, the daughter, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder with ongoing psychotic episodes, depression, anxiety and later bipolar disorder, required hospitalization five more times, taking LeMieux across the Mid-Atlantic region, from northern Delaware to a brief move to Northern Virginia and back into eastern and central Maryland.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Without a doubt one of the dumbest moves this country made was to abolish our mental hospitals.

Anonymous said...


It's quite possible that this whole set of symptoms and conditions could be alleviated with B vitamins.. particularly high-dose vitamin B3 (niacin) and B12.

Abram Hoffer, M.D. had great success with this as a psychiatrist.

Anonymous said...

Why don’t other countries have to deal with the amount of psychiatric issues and prescribed meds that the USA does?

Anonymous said...


"Why don’t other countries have to deal with the amount of psychiatric issues and prescribed meds that the USA does?"

Because those other countries don't have any 'Democrats', 1:40.

:-)

Anonymous said...

Maybe if parents would start spanking the asses of these little twerps we wouldn't need so much psychiatric help. Time to bring the paddles back in the schools.

Anonymous said...

AOC & her Fab 4 will just have to WAIT their turn !!!!

Anonymous said...

Your an idiot

Anonymous said...

They all have this issue. France, England, Aus. We are not alone in this epidemic.Not sure why the sudden boom in adolescent issues, maybe technology, maybe bc we have never let our children fail etc. I can tell you from personal experience the whole system is very hard to navigate. Get a good therapist and start there.