New Year, New Job??

The state of California moves at breakneck speed (if you are say a snail or slower animal). After doing the "test" and application in February of 2007 I finally had an interview in November and was offered a job tentative on completion of a physical this past Friday. Now it is.... get the physical done now cause the first week of Academy is the 3rd week of February, 2008!
This job is all about the benefits.....13 paid holidays, weekends off, travel accounts, pension and medical insurance.

I will miss some people from my current job but the revolving door of mental health is a sad situation which I will not miss. I was talking about it with one of the nurses today. She mentioned having had an addiction after a car accident and major depression. She said that the people around her, including a person answering the crisis line really did not allow her to wallow in self pity. The crisis line person told her that if she was really going to kill herself she should just do it!
The night before I had done the medical clearance on a woman who came in because she was depressed. Due to the fact that she drinks 24 beers a day I discussed detox with her. "I'm not here to detox". Her friends think she is suicidal...duh! She already has cirrhosis and her 20 y/o son stays home to care for her. But don't blame her cause her mom taught her to drink at 9. She also stated she does not abuse her Norco....funny but if you get 120 pills on 12/31/07 and on 1/5/08 there is 43 pills left in the bottle then I think there is something wrong!! I had some pretty shitty things happen to me as a kid, I had my teen drinking binge but I never stayed there.
CMH called the hospital to gather info on 2 patients who were there w/o insurance. One guy had been discharged from Grossmont Mental Health on the same day he got admitted to us. They asked me to get consent for his old records from GMH. He got real nervous and started to talk about how bad he feels going to all these hospitals without insurance, do I think his doctor will be sympathetic. You see they all know that if you walk into an emergency room or any medical facility and say... "I'm going to kill myself", "I'm going to walk into traffic", etc., ad nauseum, that you will be put on a hold and be brought to a warm hospital and receive 3 meals, snacks, coffee and free cigarettes.
We are sorely lacking in the states when it comes to dealing with mental health issues. "Poor Pitiful Me" (also known as Malingering) should be a ICD9 diagnosis cause that is what most of the people I see are suffering from!