By Taylor Deckert
Published: May. 17, 2024 at 8:41 AM CDT
SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - When people experience a mental health crisis, you take them to the nearest emergency room.
Taffy Zoelle, Director of Emergency Department Services at UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s has a desire to help people who are facing a significant event in their life. She says many are sad, depressed, withdrawn, and tearful.
“They just really need somebody to listen to them and get the help that they need,” said Zoelle.
In Siouxland, a large portion of those patients come to Unity Point Health-St Luke’s.
“Every day in the emergency room, we see many patients up to 120 patients a day. And many of those patients come with different issues and concerns. On average, we can have up to four to five patients in our ER boarding waiting for the right mental health beds to open,” said Zoelle.
She said many patients are dealing with suicidal schizophrenic, and drug-induced psychosis, there are just so many different types of mental health crises.
There are also children with behavioral health problems who come into the emergency room because they don’t know how to cope with what’s going on in their life.
“It can be, you know, young children that parents are having a hard time managing because they don’t have the skills and the children don’t have the skills to cope,” Zoelle explained.
“Whether it’s drug and alcohol addiction, or depression or anxiety, suicidal ideations, homicidal ideations, and each one of those comes with a unique need,” added Zoelle. “We have children as young as six years of age up to geriatric patients. So finding the right placement for those patients is challenging, as there are limited beds in the state of Iowa.”
According to Health and Human Services of Iowa, there are 901 licensed beds for inpatient psychiatric bed programs as of January 2024. Only four of those facilities are in the Siouxland area with 78 beds.
“Sometimes we do have to cross state lines in South Dakota and Omaha, Nebraska, to get those patients placed in a place where it’s safest for them. We do have an adult inpatient unit, but there is a maximum limit to that there are 14 beds there. And so sometimes we’re also looking for placements for our adults because we’ve run out of beds here in Sioux City,” explained Zoelle.
St Luke’s has a new behavioral health coordinator making rounds on the patients dealing with a mental health issue.
“When they’re in a psychiatric unit, they get therapy, they get certain medication. And so she rounds on those patients to ensure that they’re getting the right care. They’re getting the therapies that they need the recommendations for inpatient or outpatient mental health treatment. And so she’s played a key role in connecting patients to outside resources or follow up with their primary care provider if they’re able to go home,” added Zoelle.
They currently have one ligature-free behavioral safe room.
In these rooms, there are no cords or anything to harm themselves with, with more of these rooms on the way.
“We have outgrown the number of rooms that we need here in our hospital. And so at the end of May, beginning of June, we should be starting construction on five more behavioral health safe rooms to help ensure that we have safe rooms for patients who are in a mental health crisis,” said Zoelle.
At the end of the 2024 legislative session, certain behavioral health bills were sent to Governor Kim Reynold and signed into law on May 1, the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Month.
- House File 2402, an Act relating to behavioral health services for children including psychiatric medical institutions for children.
This bill provides for an enhanced rate for psychiatric medical institutions for children that care for children with specialized needs and makes regulatory changes to Psychiatric Medical Institutions for Children, like ensuring that kids are not placed with PMICs that are out-of-state, Require therapy and Behavioral Health Intervention Services to be a required service, Standardize between all MCOs the authorization for PMIC placement, Require MCOs to offer support for families, and Allows for step-down PMIC placements or supervised apartment living for a child to utilize programming at the PMIC will living independently.
- House File 2673 aligns Iowa’s 13 mental health regions and 19 substance use regions into seven unified behavioral health districts to provide consistent, coordinated services statewide and improve outcomes.
In a statement on the change Governor Reynolds said in a statement in part, “We aligned the state’s behavioral health system to support consistent, coordinated care and improve outcomes, and established Thrive Iowa to help at-risk individuals find local support and create a plan for self-sufficiency and long-term independence.”
Gov. Kim Reynolds released the following statement in response to HF 2673 passing the Iowa Senate in April:
“Iowa has made significant progress in behavioral health care in recent years, from expanding adult services to establishing the first children’s mental health system and increasing funding. But more must be done to align services, making it easier for Iowans to get the help they need and for providers to better coordinate their care. This legislation takes the next step to strengthen the system by aligning services statewide. By combining Iowa’s 32 mental health and substance use regions into seven unified behavioral health districts, we can provide consistent services, coordinate care system-wide, and, most importantly, improve outcomes for Iowans.”
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