Mentally ill children stuck in hospital limbo (Boston Globe)

Parents and advocates report that in recent weeks across the state, at least a dozen children and teens in crisis - threatening violence to themselves or others - have waited three, five, even seven days in hospital emergency rooms or medical wards for psychiatric beds.
Kelly Rowell, left, diagnosed with developmental disabilities and bipolar disorder, waited for a week in a hospital emergency room. By all accounts, the state has made significant progress toward solving the problem of "stuck kids" - children with mental illness deemed well enough to leave hospital psychiatric units but stuck in them for lack of treatment programs outside.
But while it has gotten easier for children to leave the state's mental health facilities, which should make more beds available, it appears to have gotten harder, in some cases, to get in.