Sparrow Hospital Psychiatric ER: Patient Group Holds Hospital Accountable

June 1, 2023

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — After months of posting signs around East Lansing, hearing former patient stories, and spreading awareness, Lucinda Gleespen, the organizer behind the group ‘Holding Sparrow Accountable’ said Tuesday was a step in the right direction.

“It feels a little bit crazy,” Gleespen said. “It went from something very small and personally, to really, something big pretty quickly.”

The former patient started the group after she and multiple others claimed they had unsafe experiences at E.W. Sparrow Hospital’s psychiatric emergency room.

But steps were taken after her group grabbed the attention of the E.W. Sparrow Hospital’s president, Margaret Dimond.

“I met with the president of Sparrow and several other advisors from Sparrow to talk about the issues going on in their psychiatric E.R. I provided them with a report about everything that’s been going on and they told me a little bit about what they’ve been doing, their side of the story, and the steps they’re going to be taking going forward,” Gleespen said.

Those steps, Dimond said, includes “deploying nurses and techs trained in psychiatry to care for those patients.”

E. W. Sparrow Hospital’s president added that they had a constructive meeting today with valuable feedback about their Behavioral Health services, amid an increase in patients.

“We also emphasized that the treatment of Behavioral Health patients is a community issue and we need partners to step up and help alleviate the huge increase in those patients being held, pending treatment, in our Emergency Department and at other hospital EDs throughout the state, thus delaying more appropriate settings and care,” Dimond said.

According to Gleespen, Dimond said it should take about 60 days or so to go through the hiring process and implement different policies.

“I’m really happy with how things have turned out. I’m happy to hear that changes are being worked on. I hope that they really take the patient voices that we’ve collected seriously,” Gleespen said.

Dimond said in the future, Gleespen is invited back to see how things change and take a tour of the facility when the new policies have been put in place.

Source: McKoy Scribner, “E. W. Sparrow Hospital president meets with patient group amid criticisms,” WLNS.com, May 30, 2023, URL: https://www.wlns.com/news/sparrow-president-meets-with-patient-group-amid-criticisms/