this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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229
A 12-year-old killed herself at a Spokane hospital that recently closed its youth psychiatric unit (www.investigatewest.org)
submitted 6 days ago by Mee@reddthat.com to c/news@lemmy.world
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Workers say girl’s death is an example of what they feared from Providence closing the unit

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[–] obscureprodigy@pawb.social 42 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

~~they say they want to know how and why this happened. you already know. they did not have the staff or support needed to properly take care of your child because of cuts by your state and local government. it is unconscionable.~~

i think i misunderstood the main cause for this. still a terrible decision being made by greed and business first mentality.

[–] blakenong@lemmings.world 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It’s medical incompetence not understaffing. They could have had a remote sitter, but they didn’t do it. Sacred Heart has a crap ton of resources.

[–] obscureprodigy@pawb.social 13 points 6 days ago (2 children)

ah, i'll take your word for it. but it seems closing a psych unit would cut staff and resources which would lead to something terrible like this.

[–] blakenong@lemmings.world 11 points 6 days ago (2 children)

They closed the unit, they didn’t short it. They just put them on other floors. Those nurses haven’t been trained or don’t give a shit. It’s policy to have a human in a room with a suicide risk. Children are priority. If they can’t get a tele sitter in there, a physical person will be.

Since that didn’t happen, it’s negligence. Someone didn’t do their job.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

No not quite. For the record both my wife and I work at hospitals.

The article itself reads:

It isn’t clear what Sarah’s doctors planned for her next step in care. Her family and staff who cared for her said she had shown improvements during the last month.

A discontinuation of a sitter following protocols during a 3 month stay is quite normal, and also a give-and-take of trust. All of this is going to come down to patient charting and whether the doctors followed protocol in discontinuing sitter monitoring for an SI patient. Clearly as the article reads there were signs of improvement and at some point that child would have to be discharged.

They also noted they wanted to move the child to an patient psych facility but they were full. At its core, a hospital is not a long-term care facility. To house a child for 3 months on this is beyond the scope of what most Hospitals are capable of adequately handling as acute care facilities, and yes, she should have been transferred to a pediatric psych facility... But again, the system is backlogged.

This is a system strained to its core. What should be emphasized here is 1) The psych unit would've had the PHYSICAL measures to prevent her from leaving, independent of anything else. Yes, this was a cut. 2) The entire medical system is under immense stress right now. A true crisis. Staffing shortages are absolutely one key aspect of this among others.

[–] blakenong@lemmings.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

For the record, my spouse worked for THAT hospital. So, quite.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Eh big doubt, but ask them what the protocol is for discontinuation of sitter following psych eval improvement and pending discharge.

[–] obscureprodigy@pawb.social 1 points 6 days ago

gotcha, thanks for explaining it more for me.

[–] FirstCircle@lemmy.ml 8 points 6 days ago

They pay some (all?) of their C-level execs (and maybe others) tens of millions of $/yr in salaries and bonuses. What, you want that money spent on staff and patient resources? You must be a Communist! Some claimed numbers from 2019:

Providence is making enough money to give CEO Rod Hochman a 157% raise between 2015 and 2017, bumping his total compensation to more than $10 million. Top executives at Corporate Headquarters aren’t the only ones getting huge raises. Current Chief Executive at Sacred Heart Peg Curry earned more than $1.2 million in 2018 including a one-year bonus of $131,812. As Chief Nursing Officer, Susan Stacey’s total compensation increased by 35% between 2015 and 2018 including bonuses totaling $97,638. Previous Chief Executive Officer Alex Jackson’s total compensation increased by 47% between 2015 and 2017 including bonuses totaling $668, 468. https://www.wsna.org/union/update/spokesman-story-misleading-incomplete

Naturally they fight against their workers' unions too

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's not even incompetence. It's criminal negligence.

[–] FirstCircle@lemmy.ml 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm blocked by Reddit "filters" from posting on the Spokane subreddit, but if any of you are on there I encourage you to repost this. I had not heard of this story before seeing the article today.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 10 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Oh my God is read it that bad now? It's completely unusable if that's the case

[–] FirstCircle@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 days ago

Yeah it is. I think the company must be trying to filter all user-supplied content in such a way as to make it maximally resellable to other AI companies. Even as a read-only platform, I sometimes wonder how many good posts I'm missing because they've secretly been banned/filtered.

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, they also recently gave their censorship bot the ability to ban people. So if you type two bad words in one sentence, you're banned and need to explain yourself if you want the account back.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago

what a total shitstorm. the more I hear the less I wanna go back. we need to get all the old niche communities back up and running here

[–] HipHoboHarold@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Its not as bad as, say, TikTok on most subs. Like comments that can get deleted on there just need to contain words like ewww. Or silly goose.

But it is moving in that direction. Like you can report someone for being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Nothing will happen most of the time.

But call them a dumb fuck and suddenly youre harassing them.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago

classic corpofash moderation.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago

Just wait until the trillion dollars in medicade cuts goes into effect.

[–] FirstCircle@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

As children's mental health needs escalate, teens in the area would lose access to lifesaving treatment. And other nearby facilities would struggle to fill the gap, Sacred Heart executives wrote in an application for a state Department of Commerce grant in February 2024, obtained by InvestigateWest in a records request.

"If this unit downsized or closed, this would cause even less access in an under-resourced area resulting in patients and families having to travel several hours for inpatient care,” hospital leaders wrote.

Sacred Heart asked the state for $1.8 million to pay for facility upgrades to make the unit safer and “ensure that every child has access to high-quality, affordable and culturally competent mental health care.”

The pitch worked. The state awarded Sacred Heart the full amount it requested.

But Sacred Heart turned the grant down in April. In September, it closed the Psychiatric Center for Children and Adolescents anyway.

In the last decade, Sacred Heart repeatedly reduced services and long-term resources in the unit, according to internal emails, public records and interviews. Yet as Sacred Heart cuts youth services in Spokane, the Providence system is pouring more than $1 billion into a hospital expansion in Seattle that sees fewer Medicaid patients. And its executives are making millions.

https://www.investigatewest.org/investigatewest-reports/former-staff-at-spokane-youth-psychiatric-unit-blame-providence-for-closure-17784579

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 days ago

those corpo scumbags. I grew up near there and let me tell you it's depressing they need all the youth mental healthcare they can get

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 8 points 6 days ago

Sarah’s death, pieced together through interviews with health care providers and family, 911 calls, and a hospital report submitted to the state’s health department, comes just six months after the hospital closed its Psychiatric Center for Children and Adolescents. That decision was made over the objections of staff and community members concerned about a lack of beds for youth in need of inpatient mental health care. In February 2024, hospital executives wrote in a state grant application that the center, despite losing $2 million a year, provided lifesaving care to children and teens, and that nearby facilities would struggle to fill the gap if it closed. After closing the center, however, Sacred Heart CEO Susan Stacey minimized the impact, saying a for-profit facility in Spokane was ready to meet the demand... “When Sacred Heart closed its adolescent psychiatric unit just months ago, nurses, physicians, community members, and former patients and their families warned about the impact this would have on services for this highly vulnerable population,” said David Keepnews, executive director of the Washington State Nurses Association. “WSNA expressed concern about a decision that was based on the financial bottom line at the expense of the community’s needs.”

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Come on Spokane ur better than this