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Stories of the year: In midst of pandemic, many children were in a mental health crisis

Hartford Courant - 12/27/2021

Demand for pediatric behavioral health care surged dramatically this year, as emergency rooms overflowed with children seeking urgent services and child psychiatrists were deluged with requests for help.

Beginning in 2020 and continuing through 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profoundly destabilizing effect on many children, as they navigated remote learning, reduced social contact and in some cases, illness and death within their families. For some children, returning to in-person learning this past fall also brought a new host of challenges and anxieties.

Providers across the state reported seeing not only more children with behavioral health needs, but also conditions that were more severe.

The Hartford Courant selected children’s mental health as one of the top 10 stories for 2021. Courant editors selected the top stories of the year based on reader interest and significance.

“Children need more services. They are sicker,” Dr. Linda Mayes, the chief of child psychiatry at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, said last month. “They are staying in the health system longer and in our treatment system longer, which creates a backlog.”

In early October, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center was overwhelmed with the number of children arriving in its emergency department seeking behavioral health care. Many families in crisis had to wait for hours before obtaining a bed for their child — and in some cases, it was days before they obtained psychiatric care.

“We’re having a medical and surgical surge, and a behavioral health surge at the same time,” said Dr. James E. Shmerling, the president and chief executive of the hospital. “We can handle a medical, surgical surge, but we’re at a breaking point with the behavioral health.”

The state Department of Public Health responded to the crisis at Children’s by beginning to divert some older patients to other hospitals. But longer-term solutions remain complex — and carving a path out of the crisis will be one of state lawmakers’ top priorities during the upcoming legislative session, which begins in February.

During a legislative forum in November, House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, described the state’s pediatric mental health crisis as “one of the more critical issues that we have to address.”

As demand for pediatric care surges, behavioral health care providers say they have been hindered by staff shortages, as employees leave the field due to burnout or for more lucrative careers.

“Compensation for individuals working in our field has been stagnant for so long, and now we are in a real crisis with it,” Heather Gates, the president and CEO of Community Health Resources, said in October.

Providers and advocates have called on lawmakers to increase funding for community mental health services, address insurance reimbursement rate disparities and enforce mental health parity provisions. Additionally, many have championed stronger partnerships between schools and mobile crisis teams, to divert children away from the emergency departments, and deeper investments in preventative efforts.

“Not a week goes by [without hearing] from a family with a 12-year-old child with just morbid depression and suicidality, released from a hospital, back home, with a waiting list,” Sarah Eagan, the state child advocate, said during a recent legislative hearing. “That happens all the time. Waiting list, waiting list, waiting list. People cannot leave the hospital. We wouldn’t treat cardiac care that way, but we treat mental health crisis that way, and we can fix that.”

Eliza Fawcett can be reached at elfawcett@courant.com.

©2021 Hartford Courant. Visit courant.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.