ALLENTOWN,Pa. — Sue Drabic of Allentown knew right away something was wrong with a family member, a college student at the time.
“He was having delusional statements, like talking about saving the world,” she said, recalling the episode. “He was saying it in a way that you could tell he was serious about it.”
All Drabic wanted, as would anyone in her shoes, was help for her loved one — and right away. What she got instead was an initiation into the state of psychiatry.
“(He) had to go all the way to Philadelphia because there were no beds in the Lehigh Valley,” she said.
He came back weeks later heavily sedated, barely able to function.
Eager to have his prescription altered, she called for an appointment with a local psychiatrist only to find out the next opening was in five to six months, she said.
“It’s hard for someone to get the news that someone they care about is very ill and then to have to wait,” she said.
Eight years later, the situation is much the same. A shortage of psychiatrists in the Lehigh Valley, statewide and nationally means limited options and long waits are still the norm, according to health care professionals, advocates and patients and their families. Specialists, such as pediatric or geriatric psychiatrists, are in even shorter supply.
