By ROGER CARROLL, The Laconia Daily Sun
Editor’s note: This is second part of a three-part series about a journey Laconia Daily Sun Managing Editor Roger Carroll made through the mental health system after a personal crisis that brought him through an emergency room, a placement annex and, finally, a designated receiving facility at Franklin Regional Hospital.
Read Part One here.
LACONIA – After a few hours sitting in a room in the emergency department at Lakes Region General Hospital the week before Thanksgiving, I was escorted to something called the Annex – also part of the LRGH emergency department.
It had all the charm of one of those park-and-ride lots off the interstate.
I had a room to myself that featured a curtain where a door might have hung, and a bed. There was a wall-mounted television and a small sink that was prison-issue stainless steel. There was no window and no bathroom. The latter was down the hall, past the nurses’ station, where a security guard was perched outside in case of trouble.
The Annex is a six-bed facility where patients with mental health issues often wait until they can be transferred somewhere else to receive treatment.
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