Lynn’s child psych unit a last resort for some

LYNN – Lynn mother Alice Morse felt she had no other alternative left when she agreed to put her 15-year-old son in a secure residential locked-down psychiatric ward for children.?He gets aggressive and it?s really untriggered sometimes. He gets explosive and it just comes out of nowhere,” Morse said about her son Tyler during a recent interview in the doctor?s cafeteria at Union Hospital on Lynnfield Street. “It becomes unsafe and you?re trying your hardest to maintain your safety at home. But, at a certain point when you can?t, that?s when you have to go to the emergency room.”Morse said her son?s three-week stay at a secure inpatient unit like the one that opened two months ago at Union Hospital, offered him the medical treatment he needed in a safe and comforting facility.?I was seeing his doctor, outpatient, and I was running into troubles at home and things were becoming unsafe and I was making phone calls and I was told on a voice mail that I might want to consider residential because the doctor just didn?t know what to do at that point,” Morse said. ” ? It gets to the point where you just feel like you have nobody to help you.”Jonathan Stevens, the Medical Director of Child Psychiatric Services for the North Shore Medical Center, which operates Union Hospital?s secure child psychiatric unit, said the facility offers the in-depth residential treatment that is needed for a small segment of children and teens with serious mental health issues that otherwise might be forced to go to a long-term residential psychiatric unit.Children and teens typically admitted to the unit are between the ages of 6-17 and being treated for a host of mental illnesses, including “depressive disorders, mood disorders and kids with disruptive behavior, such as aggression,” he said.?The two major reasons would be suicidal thoughts and destructive behaviors and aggression,” Stevens said.In Tyler Morse?s case, doctors were faced with a 15-year-old who is both autistic and has what Stevens described as “an intermittent explosive disorder.”?And what that means is that he?s a very mild-mannered sweet boy, (who) loves the Red Sox and Big Papi,” Stevens said. “But, when he gets sick, he gets a different look in his face. He gets stuck on things. People will have to repeat the same questions over and over and then it gets to the point where he might grab you, like your hair or your clothing and he doesn?t know to let go, because he gets so terrified in that moment.”?And, if he grabs you by your hair and won?t let go, people get scared of that,” Stevens added.It?s difficult to diagnosis and treat a complicated disorder like the one the 15-year-old suffers from in an outpatient setting, because the doctor or psychiatric visits tend to be as short as 15 minutes, Stevens said, which means they might not even witness the type of aggressive behavior that needs to be controlled.?We saw this because it wasn?t 15 minutes,” Stevens said of the teen?s three-week stay in the secure psychiatric unit. “It didn?t happen the first few days, but it eventually happened and we saw how severe it could be and that?s when we realized that Tyler needs treatment and he needs different medicines. And, I?ll be honest, I just saw Tyler in my office last week and he?s a different boy now.”The child psychiatric unit at Union Hospital has been the focus of controversy since The Daily Item reported it had opened nearly a month ago.Ward 1 City Councilor Wayne Lozzi raised questions at the time about having a child psychiatric unit operating at Union Hospital, which is surrounded by residential neighborhoods – a facility for adults 55 and older also operates at the hospital – and criticized hospital officials for not letting city officials know about the planned opening, and also expressed worries that its opening might mean a loss of core services at the hospital.A security risk?But Stevens stressed the safety of the unit during a recent tour of the facility, which is located on the t