One of the Valley's largest providers of inpatient psychiatric care closed more than a quarter of its beds last week due to a shortage of staff
One of the Valley's largest providers of inpatient psychiatric care closed more than a quarter of its beds last week because of a staffing shortage that is affecting patients across the public health system.
"Traditionally we have had very limited turnover in the RN role," Valleywise chief nursing officer Sherry Stotler said. Last week was an even higher number, with 118 of the 433 Valleywise beds closed, which amounted to five units and more than one quarter of the health system's total number of inpatient psychiatric beds, leaders said.
At the same time that mental health needs have increased, more behavioral health nurses have been leaving either for retirement or other jobs, said Katee Sharp, nurse manager at Valleywise Behavioral Health - Mesa, which has 127 inpatient psychiatric beds, including a 12-bed unit for adolescents ages 12 to 17.
"It's very sad to see that our numbers are dwindling because the staff here truly love their jobs. They love who they work with. They love the patients, they love the work. This is where they want to be," she said."It's all the other factors that kind of get in the way." Valleywise needs to hire at least 40 more behavioral health registered nurses to be fully staffed, Stotler said. The health system is also looking to hire at least 50 behavioral health technicians, she said.
"At the present time, we are staffed to care for about 215 patients in the Valley out of a possible 288 beds," he wrote. The company recently partnered with a recruitment company to bolster efforts to find more nurses, chief nursing officer Donna Berry said in an emailed statement. There's been an"ongoing, longstanding problem" where patients spend prolonged periods in emergency rooms waiting for an inpatient psychiatric bed and the pandemic is one of several factors that made it worse, according to Jim Dunn, executive director of NAMI Arizona. NAMI stands for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
This report found 779 psychiatrists practicing in Arizona representing 4.6% of the licensed physicians in Arizona, which is a a ratio of 11.4 psychiatrists per 100,000 Arizonans and is lower than the national average. "One of the primary barriers to establishing a robust, diverse mental health workforce is low provider reimbursement," the report says.
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