San Antonio has found that emergency rooms are ill-equipped for this. Nurses and ER doctors are not generally mental health professionals. The city, county an

San Antonio has found that emergency rooms are ill-equipped for this. Nurses and ER doctors are not generally mental health professionals. The city, county and various other authorities have built a sprawling system of mental health care facilities, partly designed to funnel people out of emergency rooms and into dedicated centers with staff trained in those situations. http://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/the-desperate-and-the-dead/series/solutions/ http://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/the-desperate-and-the-... > Take the Restoration Center, a big, boxy building on the edge of downtown. It’s a point of entry for people in psychiatric or substance abuse crises, mostly for those who lack health insurance. In the past, they went straight to emergency rooms or jail. Now many come through here — some 2,400 people a month. > Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the center has a locked psychiatric ward for short-term stays, detox units, a medical clinic, and other services. Some patients walk in on their own. Others are brought by police or referred by hospitals. Anyone reporting suicidal or homicidal thoughts is seen within 15 minutes, day or night. > In Massachusetts, there is no equivalent. Here, hospital emergency rooms function as crisis centers, and often ineffectively: Many people with severe mental illness end up being discharged without any promise of meaningful treatment.