Needless Suffering

The article in the July 18 issue describing the concerns of psychiatrists and physicians at the meeting of the AMA House of Delegates regarding the shortage of psychiatric beds had just caught my attention when I received the July 21 issue of Newsweek. I think that Jeneen Interlandi's account of the Jamaican immigrant who died in June in a Brooklyn, N.Y., emergency room while waiting nearly 24 hours for psychiatric care well exemplified the delegates' comments.

Newsweek's managing editor, Daniel Klaidman, wrote,“ What we [Newsweek] found is a callous system of psychiatric care and emergency rooms that has become a vortex of many of our social ills, including poverty, immigration, and a national health insurance crisis.”

I urge all members of APA to read Interlandi's article and discuss it with their AMA delegates.