"Teenager with suicidal ideation"

How bad is it when apparent drug user has to scream at two other apparent drug users to shut the **** up because there are sick people here sick of listening to their ****?

My older teenager is in a Mental Health Crisis. We can't go to the Perth Children's Hospital anymore because PCH can't deal with mental health problems for this age group. We called our GP - 'no appts, go to Ed'. We called CAMHS Crisis Care - 40mins on the phone to be told - 'sleep all together in the family room, so you can watch them' or 'go to ED'. Checked the wait times at ED, 'RPH - 43mins'.

We drove straight there. Both of us crying and stressed, we waited 5.5hours to be seen. Just under 1 hour to be triaged. We didn't get seen. The three drug users used a fair few resources. At one point four security guards and three Triage nurses all trying to negotiate for calm with them.  Left alone, they were actually sharing needles!  On the ED seats! While yelling at each other.

One triage nurse for most of the time for the rest of us.  The noise level, the stress, the volume of sick people was mind boggling. It was like a poorly formed social experiment - I was looking for the cameras. My child was wide eyed and totally freaked. It's not our first rodeo but def the worst.

From previous experience, we knew that if we were to be seen it would be many more hours waiting in each space around the ED Dept, waiting for MH nurse, Registrars, Docs, MH Doc and some other Psych Team member to come by at some point near dawn tomorrow morning, esp on a weekend night, and then repeating their story over and over and over and over. And then we might get a MH bed. Maybe. Most likely sent home with a referral back to CAHMS and that outdated, in my opinion, option insufficient in all ways, for our needs.

We are a relatively well adjusted, middle class family. We are supportive and caring. We have more resources than many families yet we can't help our child. And neither can a major public hospital in a capital city.  We are on waiting lists for counsellors and psychologists. My child needs to be in hospital. They need their medication adjusted. They need daily, intensive therapy - grief, trauma, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, they need it all. But we can't get it. We even have Private Health Insurance - full hospital! And that can't help my teenager either. Where do we go now? What do we do? 

I lost my mind and yelled at the entire waiting room, and security and the nurses. Yelled!  That's not me. I yelled how many chances, how many resources are being given to the 'crackheads' who are just yelling 'no!' at all suggested help. How are they able to share needles and inject drugs in the waiting room?! Why is there 1 operating triage desk? Why has noone seen this person who is in pain or that person who is going grey-er by the minute? It's not acceptable! This is not safe for a child! Not safe for anyone! No one is getting helped! It's just getting fuller and fuller! It's not good enough!

I wasn't asking for extra treatment, or to be seen faster than our Triage denoted us. It seems the clearly under-resourced system just can not keep pace with the need.  Nurses are freaking angels and I'm yelling at them because this environment is toxic and I am poisoned by it. We left. We believed we weren't likely to be seen in the next hour, the Triage nurse asked us to 'take a moment but stay' but what was the point?

In my opinion, this is not a health system. I believe there is no wellness agenda and this is public health system hell. I will just have to 'sleep in the family room with my child' and try to keep them alive myself. If they die, who do I blame?