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>While St. Joseph does have a psychiatric ward, Mr. Pean was never seen by a psychiatrist

Why does this happen? I know someone who showed up to the ER after crashing his car during a delusional manic episode. His wife showed up and said he has a history of bipolar disorder and needs a psychiatric evaluation. The nurse literally laughed at her!

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This happens because psychiatric units will not take patients who are not "medically cleared". Meaning that, if a patient has any evidence of injury or medical illness (or they think that the symptoms may be caused by something physiologic that has gone wrong -- leaving aside the fact that mental illness is physiologic at some level, you know what I mean) the psychiatric units want nothing to do with them.

They were releasing him from the ER and he was already medically cleared.

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