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Georgia family calls mental health system \u2018broken,\u2019 asks for change<\/p>\n
Families caught in the endless cycle of hospital visits and phone calls are pleading for change to Georgia\u2019s mental health care system.<\/p>\n
Channel 2\u2019s Michael Doudna<\/b> followed one family\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n
[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n On Memorial Day, Doudna first reported on Victoria Harris, a 25-year-old pregnant woman with schizoaffective disorder, who disappeared after walking out of a hospital.<\/p>\n Her family found her days later, but it was just the beginning of the story.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been to all of them,\u201d said Brittaney Bethea.<\/p>\n For Bethea, hospital doors are an all-too-common sight.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been to Grady, to Piedmont, to Northside,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n \u201cOver and over and over again, like upwards of 20 and 30 times,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a revolving door of care as she tries to help her sister, Victoria Harris.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can take a look at each other and not even say anything and kind of know what we\u2019re thinking, bust out in a laugh,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n However, Harris started to experience hallucinations and delusions in college.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s called schizoaffective disorder, the bipolar type,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n As Harris got worse, the relationship changed, and she started withdrawing.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery moment feels like, you know, my sister is missing,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n What began was a cycle, Harris would go into crisis, get to a hospital, be stabilized and then be discharged.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then psychosis happens again, and we just go back over and over again,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n Back in May, Harris who is five months pregnant walked out of Piedmont Hospital and was missing for 10 days.<\/p>\n When she was found, police arrested her on a Cobb County warrant.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, instead of routing her to the hospital like they typically do, she was routed to Atlanta Detention Center instead,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n The Cobb charges have since been dropped, but after her release doctors found she no longer qualified for a mental health hold known as a 1013 and went back on the streets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe system is really broken,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really the same story we hear that over and over,\u201d said Kevin Tanner, the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.<\/p>\n He said Georgia\u2019s 1013 standards are high, requiring the person to be an imminent danger to themselves or others.<\/p>\n And once a patient is seen as stable, the burden of care falls on the individual.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can stabilize folks very well while they\u2019re in jail, in custody or in our hospital or in a crisis center. But then what happens?\u201d said Tanner.<\/p>\n Sometimes as people go through the system, the burden falls on local jails.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe any jail is set up for success when it comes to that,\u201d said Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat.<\/p>\n He said nearly half of inmates need mental health help, and wait times for mental health evaluations can take months, and in some cases even years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is sad to say that we\u2019re in this situation, but we have to figure out how to get people additional help,\u201d said Labat.<\/p>\n To stop the cycle, Tanner said the state could lower the standards for a 1013 hold to include someone who is off their meds and psychiatrically deteriorating, while also investing in programs focused on finding ways to keep people on their medication.<\/p>\n Other states including Florida have laws that allow people with mental illness who are severely neglecting their own well-being to be placed on an involuntary mental health hold.<\/p>\n But the balance is providing care while not infringing on free will.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s the real challenge, because you\u2019re bumping up against trying to balance out the ability for someone to make their own medical decision,\u201d said Tanner.<\/p>\n But for those like Bethea, she has watched as her sister has been at three hospitals, two jails and a mental health facility since May.<\/p>\n She wants the revolving door to stop so she can get her sister back.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just looking forward to the day that we can kind of get back to that,\u201d said Bethea.<\/p>\n If you or someone you know needs mental health care, you can call or text the 988 hotline<\/a>.<\/p>\n