NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Youngsters in state custody are spending months in Tennessee hospitals as a result of the Division of Youngsters’s Providers has no place else to place them.
The kids have been medically cleared however tie up hospital beds that could possibly be utilized by others, particularly throughout instances of heightened demand.
One youngster spent greater than 9 months — 276 days — dwelling at a youngsters’s hospital after he ought to have been launched.
Some hospital officers inform NewsChannel 5 Investigates they’re turning into a dumping floor for teenagers DCS can’t place.
The Youngsters’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee (CHAT), which represents youngsters’s hospitals statewide, mentioned in a press release the youngsters “account for a lot of a whole lot of further days during which hospital care isn’t wanted.”
TennCare covers the price of hospital care for youngsters in DCS custody however wouldn’t disclose how a lot taxpayers are spending on the prolonged stays.
The Division of Youngsters’s Providers mentioned these children are laborious to position in foster care, and since they’re medically fragile, they can’t keep in DCS workplace buildings like another youngsters have been doing.
It usually begins in a pediatric emergency room.
A DCS caseworker takes a toddler to the hospital with a real medical drawback.
Normally the youngsters have simply been faraway from an abusive or neglectful residence.
However as soon as the hospital says the kid can go away, DCS says they don’t have any place for the kid to go.
State Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, was disturbed by the main points we confirmed her.
“Our state is failing. I feel we have failed these youngsters and we have fairly frankly failed DCS,” Campbell mentioned.
Examples embody a 10-year-old with Muscular Dystrophy who stayed for 103 days on the East Tennessee Youngsters’s Hospital in Knoxville.
DCS couldn’t discover a placement for the kid after his mom died of COVID and his father couldn’t look after him.
One other 10-year-old with extreme autism was housed for 51 days in the identical hospital.
He was ultimately despatched to a facility out of state as a result of DCS didn’t have a spot for him.
And an insulin-dependent diabetic stayed for days as a result of hospital notes reveal “DCS wouldn’t take (the kid) to workplace attributable to insulin photographs required.”
“To decide on between workplace flooring and hospitals isn’t an affordable alternative,” Sen. Campbell mentioned.
DCS left a toddler with a psychological well being prognosis at Vanderbilt Youngsters’s Hospital for 270 days.
The kid occupied a room from Could of 2021 by means of February of 2022.
The company left one other youngster at a hospital in Johnson Metropolis for 243 days, lengthy after the kid ought to have been launched.
DCS Commissioner Margie Quin, who took over the company in September, instructed Gov. Invoice Lee, R-Tennessee, throughout finances hearings the company has been getting calls from hospitals involved about children staying long-term.
“These are youth which might be extraordinarily troublesome to position,” Quin mentioned.
“They’re staying 100 days in hospitals, and they don’t seem to be acutely ailing, however they cannot keep in an workplace, and they don’t seem to be applicable in transitional properties,” Quin instructed the Governor.
DCS has a scarcity of foster care properties and in consequence has been pressured to have some youngsters sleep in workplace buildings.
A DCS legal professional mentioned “youngsters in wheelchairs will also be laborious to position. The toughest conditions are these with each medical and behavioral/psychological well being wants.”
Commissioner Quin requested greater than $8.7 million to fund “Evaluation Remedy Properties” that will be situated throughout the state and would maintain among the medically hard-to-place children.
“They really want specialised care, and we simply do not have programming for them,” Commissioner Quin mentioned within the finances listening to.
Sen. Campbell cannot imagine the state is commonly selecting between workplace flooring and hospital rooms.
“Let’s be accountable and provides the cash to DCS that we have to maintain youngsters,” Campbell mentioned.
“Our state has more cash proper now than we have had in many years, in reserves, and there’s completely no cause why we will not ensure that we’re taking good care of our most weak,” Campbell mentioned.
Lee signaled within the finances listening to that he was prepared to fund requests from DCS for more cash.
However even when the finances request is permitted, it’s months away from serving to — elevating questions on what may be achieved now.
“These are points we must always completely be capable of take care of within the Division of Youngsters’s Providers with out sending children to the hospital,” Senator Campbell mentioned.
Right here is the complete assertion from the Youngsters’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee (CHAT):
“Youngsters’s hospitals function the security internet for the bodily and psychological well being and well-being of kids and adolescents. For a couple of decade, youngsters’s hospitals, in TN and nationally, have seen a big enhance within the variety of youth presenting with a major psychological well being prognosis, due to the dearth of available companies and a fragmented supply system for these companies.
One other group of kids discovering themselves admitted to the youngsters’s hospitals in our state are these in DCS custody. These youth are sometimes dropped at pediatric emergency rooms due to a real medical or behavioral want. Nonetheless, when they’re prepared for discharge, DCS groups are challenged with discovering applicable placement choices, thereby delaying discharge. Whereas these youngsters stay in hospitals, it ties up assets that could possibly be utilized by different youngsters. Lengths of hospital stays throughout the state vary from a number of days to months, with one youngsters’s hospital reporting the longest keep of 276 days.
Collectively, these sufferers account for a lot of a whole lot of further days during which hospital care isn’t wanted. DCS steadily cites restricted to no placement choices and struggles with inadequate assets to adequately workers and assist these youngsters of their care. New DCS Commissioner, Margie Quin, just lately acknowledged the problem of lengthy hospital stays for some youngsters and has outlined a plan to deal with this and different points DCS faces by means of vital measures reminiscent of extra funding and elevated coaching and elevated assist for case staff.
Mary Nell Bryan, President of the Youngsters’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee, mentioned, “The Youngsters’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee appreciates that the staff of the Division of Youngsters’s Providers work laborious to handle challenges find foster properties for youngsters who’re medically fragile or coping with power medical situations, reminiscent of diabetes.. There are typically not sufficient applicable locations for such transfers to occur shortly. We respect that Commissioner Quin has requested extra funding and outlined a plan that features elevated coaching and elevated assist for case staff. The work of DCS case staff and different DCS staffers is vitally vital. As will also be mentioned about those that work in hospitals, whereas this work can current challenges, additionally it is extraordinarily rewarding. We urge households to think about fostering youngsters who’re medically fragile or who’re coping with a power situation reminiscent of diabetes.”
