Children’s Hospital Colorado is declaring a mental health state of emergency for kids across the state. They say they’ve seen a huge increase in emergency room visits for children who have attempted suicide. Mental health emergency visits rose 90-percent across the hospital system in April. The most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that in 2018, Colorado had one of the 10 highest age-adjusted suicide death rates in the nation, at 21.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Health care officials are calling on state lawmakers to implement a public health order that would allow them more flexibility to offer treatment solutions to children around Colorado.
