âA genuine moment of crisisâ: Mental health patients wait days in emergency wards
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Suicidal and psychotic patients spent days waiting in Melbourne emergency department cubicles this week as a shortage of mental health beds was exacerbated by the forced lock down of psychiatric wards at three hospitals.
There were 129 beds temporarily closed to new admissions at The Alfred, the Northern Hospital in Epping and Broadmeadows Hospital because a mental health worker who had worked in all three health services tested positive to COVID-19 and was linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak.
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Crookston Times
While I would dearly love to send out an update that doesn’t mention COVID-19, I’m not able to do that and won’t be able to for some time yet. So, COVID-19 is where we begin this month.again.
We were fortunate to have several Head Start centers selected for participation in the State of Minnesota pilot program for vaccinations in the middle of January. While not all eligible staff were able to receive a vaccine, we certainly have a good start in some of our centers. Also, we were contacted by Polk County Public Health at the end of the month to get a list of our bus drivers so they could be vaccinated. That was certainly welcome news as our drivers have kept the buses moving EVERY DAY since the pandemic began.
• St. Mary s Mission School
• Thief River Falls Area Food Shelf
• United Way of Bemidji Area
• United Way of Crookston
• Warren S.O.S. Living at Home - Block Nurse Program
“Although we are excited to provide funding for direct services, we are still concerned that the need for financial relief is greater than our limited resources can handle,” states Nate Dorr, vice president for advocacy at Northwest Minnesota Foundation in Bemidji. “We encourage folks to remain diligent in practicing public health recommendations so we can get back to normal quicker.”
This was the second round of emergency relief grant funding from the foundation to provide direct assistance to communities most in need. Dorr says the foundation is posting recorded video interviews with grantees on their website. The recorded storytelling is a way of sharing how communities are meeting the challenges of the pandemi
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Mental health nurses struggling with their own mental health as stress and workloads escalate
Mental health nurses report staff shortages, unsustainable high workloads, acutely unwell patients, and verbal and physical aggression as top causes of work stress impacting their own mental health, according to a new ACUsurvey.
The survey of 498 Victorian mental health nurses on wellbeing and stress, published in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, is the first and largest of its kind in Australia.
Lead author Professor Kim Foster, who heads ACU’s Mental Health Nursing Research Unit in partnership with NorthWestern Mental Health at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said it has raised serious concerns about ongoing implications for the wellbeing, retention, and practice of the largest group in the mental health workforce.