I brought my daughter to the ER at Valley Regional...

I brought my daughter to the ER at Valley Regional on 7/1 after she spoke to an addiction crisis counselor. She was suicidal and relapsing and we were told to bring her to the ER for evaluation and then they would help place her in a treatment facility. When she got there the place was nearly empty but they put her in a room with a broken chair (no bed) where she had a few perfunctory tests run ( blood and urine) she sat in that room for more than 6 hours with someone checking on her only a couple of times. They did a quick psych evaluation and after finding out her Medicaid wouldn t cover a stay at Brattleboro Retreat they summarily discharged her with no medication or referral. She was in the parking lot in the pouring rain crying hysterically scared that she wouldn t make it thru the night. She knew she needed help. I sat with her all night to make sure she didn t hurt herself and the next day got back on the phone where we hit one dead end after another trying to get her any kind of help. Her Medicaid wasn t taken anywhere. Finally she called the DHMC crisis line and was told to go to the ER there immediately. They were shocked to hear how she was treated at Valley Regional. They gave her the help she so desperately needed. If this is the kind of care someone who is suicidal and begging for help can expect from Valley Regional then I would strongly advise people to skip this place altogether, or maybe it s just people suffering from addictions who are treated so dismissively? In any case I wouldn t describe the little they did as care, and I suppose if she had killed herself that would have been just another statistic. I m also sure they will bill the maximum while they did the bare minimum.