Emergency Rooms get help for psychiatric patients

The Charleston Dorchester Mental Health Center is offering new services to help alleviate crowded emergency rooms.

The Center just opened an Urgent Care Center on March 2nd to handle patients with immediate psychiatric needs. The goal is to move people out of space needed for patients with medical needs to a place more specialized to handle mental illnesses.

According to the center’s director of special operations Matt Dorman it takes on average about 10 times as long to attend to psychiatric needs as it does medical needs.

At the Urgent Care Center patients come from hospital E.R.‘s, walk-ins or other referrals. They can receive immediate assessments, counseling, long-term care referrals and even get prescriptions from the staff psychiatrist.

It’s not the only recent additional to the local mental health care scene. Palmetto Behavioral Health has a crisis center where patients can stay over-night.

These services come at a time when the overall South Carolina Mental Health System is facing financial losses and staff shortages. The National Alliance for Mental Illness recently dropped S.C.‘s grade for services from a “B-minus” to a “D.“

If you or someone you know is in need of immediate mental health assistance you can call the Urgent Care Center at 843 414-2350 or in Berkeley County you can dial 888-202-1381.