Kids’ mental health ER visits jumped 26% at Children’s Hospital Colorado this summer

By Erica Breunlin | The Colorado Sun

Summer usually marks a quiet time for mental health programs at Children’s Hospital Colorado. This year, the hospital system saw more students with more severe struggles.

A surge of kids struggling with mental health crises spent part of their summer in the emergency department at Children’s Hospital Colorado — a season medical professionals say is typically quiet with a lull in patients.

Children’s Hospital Colorado reported a 26% uptick in children showing up at the emergency department because of mental health challenges between June and July this year compared with the same timeframe last year. And the number of kids needing inpatient care at the hospital system jumped more than 55% from 2020 to 2024, according to data provided by the hospital system.

Just as worrisome, mental health experts say, was the severity of kids’ struggles over the summer as more students sought help in the emergency department for more complex mental health issues.

“What we’re seeing is more acuity and more severity across the board,” said Lyndsay Gaffey, vice president of patient care services at the hospital system’s Pediatric Mental Health Institute. “We’re seeing longer lengths of stays. We’re seeing more kids in our health system that don’t have a place to go to hand off to in the community after getting treatment.”

A wide range of factors add to the deluge of kids with worsening mental health landing in Children’s Hospital Colorado, according to Gaffey and other mental health specialists who work with children. Among them, kids are tuning into economic and political uncertainty as partisan divides continue to deepen. At the same time, Colorado’s strained mental health care system, with limited mental health resources in schools and communities, simply can’t keep up with the demand of students who need more advanced care. 

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