“we don’t know, but what we do know is that you can’t just leave a 13-year-old in an ER for weeks on end with no end in sight.” …
Actually, you absolutely CAN abandon a kid in the ER. And an at risk adult. And an at risk senior. And a demented patient. and and and and. I’ve seen them all get left there, and the hospitals become responsible for trying to find them a place to go.
In this case, the state can start trying to find him a place to go via the foster system, but that takes awhile. And that’s IF they can find him a place to go. And so he stays in the ER…
As for why he stays in the ER - well, in this case, Longmont does not have a pediatrics department. But even if they did, he would most likely stay in the ER for a couple reasons -
he actually might be easier to keep safe there (depending on his flight risk, etc, and ignoring the fact that living in an ER and watching what goes on there is not healthy in ANY way).
it is easier to place someone from the ER than once they are “upstairs.”
And since he has no medical reason to get admitted (ie, appendicitis), most admitting services won’t accept him as a ‘social’ admission - partly because no one will get paid for admitting him.
I assure you there are worse scenarios in ERs all over the country right now. That does not make this scenario at all acceptable. I just think it is important for people to know this is not an isolated incident at one hospital.
