My 17 year old daughter is actively suicidal. She has hallucinations and they are making her incredibly anxious and she cannot cope any longer. In addition she has separate neurological symptoms we think might be related to migraines with aura.
We brought her to A&E in Ireland where they wanted to admit her. She had preliminary examination, bloods, urine and a CT scan. She needs an MRI and a psych evaluation.
There were people there who had sat on chairs for 48 hours waiting to be admitted and she was becoming increasingly distressed. I spoke to a really lovely nurse who said they had 161 patients in A+E and 30 waiting for beds which did not exist in the wards my DD had dropped from the 2nd person waiting on a bed to the 17th. She could not estimate how long it would be but she didn’t think that it was impossible that she would be waiting all night at a minimum.
We had been waiting 15 hours already and it was nearly 11 o’clock at night so I decided to just take her home. For context there were other incredibly ill and vulnerable patients in the same circumstances and staff were all really lovely and clearly overwhelmed. This is a system problem that I certainly cannot fix.
Understanding that A+E is no longer an option because it would be the same experience what do I need to do next?