Emergency health care use and follow-up among sociodemographic groups of children who visit emergency departments for mental health crises

Amanda S. Newton; Rhonda J. Rosychuk; Kathryn Dong; Janet Curran; Mel Slomp; Patrick J. McGrath

doi:10.1503/cmaj.111697

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Emergency health care use and children with mental health crises
Richard Cunningham MD

Posted on: 14 June 2012

Posted on: (14 June 2012)

Emergency health care use and children with mental health crises
Richard Cunningham MD, FP
This is thought provoking.It is interesting that though the first nation child presented to the ER more frequently than any of the groups and their followup with health care was less frequent and delayed their return to ER graph is very close to the child's that was not subsidized and lower than the other groups.This might suggest a resilency or that heaven forbid the doctor visit was of little help or negative.The well...
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This is thought provoking.It is interesting that though the first nation child presented to the ER more frequently than any of the groups and their followup with health care was less frequent and delayed their return to ER graph is very close to the child's that was not subsidized and lower than the other groups.This might suggest a resilency or that heaven forbid the doctor visit was of little help or negative.The wellfare children soon joined the less seen, leaving the subsidized child to the mercy of the physicians. What did the subsidy mean to the child and the doctor? It is mentioned that diagosis was at the discretion of the ERP and by no means standardized and presented a limitation and it would be revealing if these did change on followup. Also did these children all have urine drug screens especially the group with substance abuse as a diagnosis. Addiction is a genetic and a family disease and accounts for at least 25% of ER visits. A good proportion of your other pseudo- diagnoses given could well be manifestations of chemical use.The ambivalence of the medical community to inhaled thc and our society generally have contributed to the epidemic use of cannabis in our children and should be considered in the emergently disturbed child.
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None declared
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Competing Interests: None declared.