Nashville, Tennessee (WTVF) — Children in state custody spend months in Tennessee hospitals because the Department of Child Services has nowhere else to put them.
The children are now medically clear, but they are tying up hospital beds that others can use, especially when demand is high.
One child spent more than nine months (276 days) in children’s hospital after he should have been released.
Some hospital officials say Investigated by NewsChannel 5 They’re becoming a dumping ground for children that the DCS can’t place.
The Tennessee Children’s Hospital Alliance (CHAT), which represents children’s hospitals statewide, said in a statement that children “have hundreds more days without needing hospital care.”
TennCare covers the hospital costs of children under DCS care, but does not disclose how much taxpayers spend on extended stays.
According to the Department of Child Welfare, these children are difficult to place in foster care and are medically fragile and cannot stay in the DCS office building like other children.
It often begins in the pediatric emergency room.
A DCS caseworker takes a child with a real medical problem to the hospital.
Children are usually recently removed from abusive and neglectful homes.
But when the hospital says the child can be discharged, DCS says the child has nowhere to go.
State Senator Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) was uneasy about the details we showed her.
“Our state is failing. I think we failed these kids. Frankly, I think we failed DCS,” Campbell said.
An example includes a 10-year-old child with muscular dystrophy who stayed at Children’s Hospital of East Tennessee, Knoxville for 103 days.
DCS was unable to locate the child after his mother died of COVID and his father was unable to care for him.
Another 10-year-old child with severe autism was admitted to the same hospital for 51 days.
DCS had no place for him, so he was eventually sent to an out-of-state facility.
And an insulin-dependent diabetic stayed for days because a hospital memo revealed that “DCS didn’t bring[the child]to the office because she needed an insulin injection.”
“Choosing between office floors and hospitals is not a rational choice,” said Senator Campbell.
DCS left a child with a mental health diagnosis at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital for 270 days.
This child occupied the room from May 2021 to February 2022.
The agency left another child in a Johnson City hospital for 243 days.
DCS Commissioner Margie Quinn, who took over the agency in September, told Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee that he’s been getting calls from hospitals at budget hearings, concerned about children staying too long. rice field.
“These are young people who are very difficult to identify,” Quinn said.
“They have been in the hospital for 100 days and are not acutely ill, but they cannot stay in the office and are not suitable for temporary homes,” Quinn told the governor.
There is a shortage of foster care facilities in DCS, and as a result some children are forced to sleep in office buildings.
A DCS attorney said, “It can also be difficult to place children who use wheelchairs. The most challenging situations are when they have both medical and behavioral/mental health needs.”
Commissioner Quinn requested more than $8.7 million to fund “evaluation treatment homes” located statewide to maintain some of the medically hard-to-place children.
“They really need special care and we don’t have a program for them,” Commissioner Quinn said at the budget hearing.
Senator Campbell can’t believe states are choosing between office floors and hospital rooms so often.
“Let’s be responsible and give DCS the funds it needs to care for our children,” Campbell said.
“Our state now has more reserves than it has had in decades, and there is absolutely no reason why we can’t make sure we are taking care of our most vulnerable people.
Lee indicated at the budget hearing that he is willing to fund additional requests from DCS.
But even if the budget request is approved, aid will take months, raising questions about what can be done now.
“These issues can definitely be addressed by the Child Welfare Department without sending children to the hospital,” said Senator Campbell.
Here is the full statement from the Children’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee (CHAT):
“Children’s hospitals serve as safety nets for the physical and mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. A significant increase, due to the lack of ready-to-use services and fragmented delivery systems for those services.
Another group of children admitted to our state’s children’s hospitals are children under the care of DCS. These young people are often brought to the pediatric emergency room for genuine medical or behavioral need. However, once ready for discharge, DCS teams are challenged to find suitable placement options, thereby delaying discharge. While these children remain in the hospital, resources available to other children are tied up. Statewide hospital stays range from days to months, with one children’s hospital reporting her longest stay of 276 days.
Together, these patients add hundreds of days without hospital care. DCS often cites limited placement options and struggles with insufficient resources to adequately staff and support the care of these children. Her new DCS Commissioner, Margie Quin, recently acknowledged the problem of long hospital stays for some children and outlined plans to address this and other issues facing DCS.
Mary Nell Bryan, President of the Children’s Hospital Alliance of Tennessee, said: Chronic medical conditions such as diabetes.. There may not be enough suitable places for such a transfer to occur quickly. We thank Secretary Quinn for requesting more funding and outlining plans that include increased training and increased support for caseworkers. The work of DCS caseworkers and other her DCS staff is very important. As with anyone who works in a hospital, the job can be tough, but it’s also rewarding. We strongly encourage families to consider raising a child who is medically vulnerable or who suffers from chronic conditions such as diabetes. ”
