TOPEKA — A patient in mental health crisis undergoing treatment at the overcrowded Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph in Wichita brutally attacked a nurse checking his vital signs.
“He comes off the bed and grabs her neck and he is intent on squeezing the life out of her,” said Robyn Chadwick, president of Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph. “Before he completely had his hands tight around her neck she was able to get out a squeal.”
Her cry for help summoned other staff members who subdued the patient at south-central Kansas’ largest provider of acute mental health services.
The violent incident was a symptom of overcrowding in the Ascension hospital’s emergency room and a reminder of the longstanding shortage of bed space at state mental hospitals in Osawatomie and Larned, Chadwick said.
https://kansasreflector.com/2022/08/24/kansas-shortage-of-mental-health-hospital-beds-a-factor-in-violence-against-workers/