'It's heartbreaking because you don't have a way to help these people.' I've had people down there for more than two weeks before,' Dr. Nigel Fontenot, Unity Medical Center's Director of Emergency Services, said it is not unusual for mental health patients to wait longer than Moore did. Nurses told her she could not leave because she might hurt herself. Moore spent her time at the hospital in a small room with no window or TV that was often locked. What little bit I slept was the only time I didn't cry,' Moore said.

'I remember crying the whole time I was there, every hour.

The waiting puts a strain on emergency rooms not equipped to handle mental health patients - and on patients who are experiencing a mental health crisis. What happened to Moore is called Emergency Department Boarding, and state data shows patients often wait for days to get into a state-run psychiatric hospital. 'I just wanted help, and I felt like I was being thrown away,' Moore said. 35 on the waiting list to get into Moccasin Bend, the nearest state-run psychiatric hospital outside of Chattanooga.

Doctors determined she needed a psychiatric hospital, but she did not have insurance. She was admitted to Unity Medical Center in Manchester in July of 2020, after telling her therapist she was thinking about suicide. (WTVF) - Helen Moore was traumatized by the four days she spent in an emergency room waiting for a bed to open at a psychiatric hospital.

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