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I t takes almost five hours to drive from the western border of Los Angeles County to the eastern border of San Bernar- dino County. And that's without traffic. Those are the kinds of challenging circumstances Ron Weiss, an RN who cares for adult behavioral health unit (BHU) patients at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, Calif., worries about these days for his psych patients and their loved ones. "There are [no longer] many hospitals that have a psychiatric unit as one of their specialties, which limits the access of care in their communities, especially for children who are sent very far away from home, sometimes two counties away," said Weiss. Family support is of critical importance for patients trying to recover from behavioral health problems. How are they supposed to do that when it takes an entire day of driving to even visit? In Sacramento, Calif., more than 375 miles north of Glendale, psychiatric RN Laura Dixon's latency and adolescent inpatients at Sutter Center for Psychiatry hail from as far north as Yreka, a small town near the Oregon border and as far south as Los Angeles, a nearly 7-hour drive from Sacramento or a 1.5-hour nonstop flight from LAX. And Linda Rucker's behavioral health patients at Jackson Park Hospital are primarily Black, Latinx, and Polish, and from the South Side of Chicago. But she is seeing transfers from other hospitals coming from as far as 60 miles away. Long before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, mental health in the United States was already in crisis. Covid simply made the situation much, much worse. Patients placed at extreme physical distances away from their homes due to lack of BHU beds in their commu- nities is just one symptom of the dire lack of inpatient care for behavioral health nationwide. Nurses reported many more stories about how our current money-driven health system is utterly failing patients who need inpatient mental health care and impeding nurses' ability to provide it, but also shared how they enjoy and remain deeply committed to their work. Behavioral health, mental health, and psychiatric nurses are on the front lines of this crisis every day. They see the impact of our profit-driven health care system on their patients, which results in delays in care, lack of available treatment for uninsured and under- insured patients, the closure of BHUs, little to no follow-up care after discharge, patients staying long-term in emergency depart- ments or discharged with no place to go, and more. They also see how stigma against people with mental illness persists at all levels, 18 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 Into the Mind The U.S. mental health system was already in crisis, and Covid just intensified its ills. Learn what NNU nurses working in behavioral health across the country have observed, and how they are advocating for their patients. By Chuleenan Svetvilas Ron Weiss, RN, behavioral health unit, Glendale Memorial Hospital, Glendale, Calif.