After starting therapy at Hall-Mercer Community Mental Health Center in his adolescence for familial conflicts at home, patient Michael Garuccio eventually became a mental health advocate, hosting fundraisers in college to support others on their own mental health journeys. As an adult, he felt everything was going well in life, until he began to have brief bouts of deep depression, leading to suicide ideation. In one of these periods, Garuccio remembered where he originally sought help as a teen and made a life-saving phone call to a friend connected with Hall-Mercer.
Six years later, Garuccio shared this powerful story as a guest speaker at PAH’s Franklin-Bond Speaker Series. Focused on “Mental Health Care at Pennsylvania Hospital Through the Ages: From Stigmatization to Integration,” the December virtual event explored PAH’s unique history in caring for mental illness and the initiatives in place to reduce the stigma around seeking treatment.
Hosted by CEO of PAH Theresa Larivee, the event included a lineup of staff speakers: moderator Betty Craig, DNP, RN, FACHE, chief nursing officer; Douglas Clapp, LMFT, licensed family therapist; Jody J. Foster, MD, MBA, chair of Psychiatry; Stacey Peeples, curator and lead archivist; and Patty Inacker, DSW, MBA, LCSW, Behavioral Health Service Line administrator.
Peeples first delved into the hospital’s history, debunking the idea that PAH was initially founded as a mental health hospital in 1751. The mission was to care for the sick, poor, and mentally ill, but by the time of the American Revolution, “there were twice as many mentally ill to physically ill patients in the Pine building,” Peeples said. This led medical leaders to seek better room conditions and therapies for this population, beginning PAH’s concentration on optimizing mental health treatment.
Since then, the need for mental health services has only increased, exacerbated recently by the COVID-19 pandemic. But scheduling that initial appointment for treatment is often a challenge for patients.
“What we need to do is emphasize that seeking mental health treatment is equally important as physical health treatments,” said Inacker. “I like to say check-ups from the neck up are as important as check-ups from the neck down.”
The Mental Health Engagement and Delivery (MEND) program has been a proactive approach to addressing the psychiatric needs of patients on medicine floors. A team of social workers, nurse practitioners, and a psychiatrist are embedded on inpatient units to assist with patients facing both physical and mental health issues. The team delivers mental health interventions throughout a patient’s stay, offering advice for medication management and crisis de-escalation.
Telehealth has also become a vehicle for serving patients amid the pandemic. While many patients prefer this contactless method due to COVID-19, clinicians need to be tuned in to the patients who use telehealth to avoid the stigma of walking into a mental health center.
Hall-Mercer has also partnered with local schools and the city’s Juvenile Justice Center to provide adolescent mental health evaluations, screenings, medication management, and individual psychotherapy to help individuals meet their needs.
“This type of forum socializes discussion around mental health and normalizes that it’s okay to seek help,” said Inacker. “The work that PAH Psychiatry does is nothing short of miracles. People’s lives are transformed, and I get to witness that every day.”