Good afternoon, thank you for hearing my testimony on emergency room rights H.3585 my name is Emily Russell and I’m with the Transformation Center in Boston . I am here today to show my support and urge you to give this bill a favorable report.
I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder in 2004; I thought I was losing my mind. I would get on the train for an appointment and end up across Boston two hours later not knowing what happened. Doctors stated I was losing time. There were flash backs, which is an event that happened years ago, but you think it is happening at the time. Hospitals and emergency rooms became a revolving door until I stopped going.
Emergency rooms where more traumatic to me than the P.T.S.D. ; you have DR’s and security guards yelling at you, you’re taken to a small cement room that looks like a cell and they make you take off your clothes. Sometimes five people will come in and restrain you to a bed, at that time in my life a man’s voice would make me curl into a ball. I became homeless and self medicating; until my Doctor, peer advocate and my MBHP worker bound together to help me outside of the emergency rooms. It worked! Today I have a Place to live a job and I stand before you as proof, but for so many others it doesn’t have a happy ending. Prisons and death is all too common and it doesn’t have to be. Today a bill sits on your table; a bill that requires Emergency Room Staff to document and report to the MH-SA committee. This is good!
Because if no one knows what is going on how than can anything change? Getting help should not be more terrifying than the illness itself.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. I hope the committee will give this bill a favorable report.
Emily Russell
