"Emergency treatment following an overdose"

I am a grandparent carer of a young person who has an eating disorder. They live by themselves now and is an adult. They were diagnosed with the eating disorder a few years ago and was under the care of the eating disorder unit at Perth Children’s Hospital until they aged out of the system. Since then, they have been monitored medically by a GP and sees a private psychologist weekly. They have a psychiatrist but has only seen them twice. 

Recently, my grandchild took an overdose (the second one since they became an adult), and then got very frightened and called me for help. I was close by and called an ambulance. They were taken to Armadale Hospital Emergency Department where they remained for 24 hours. My grandchild received an intravenous drip, I believe of one bag of saline and then two bags of a nutrient solution. Their blood pressure was low, as was their blood sugar. My grandchild was brought into a state of medical stability and a psychiatric assessment conducted. 

The psychiatric assessment found them to be capable of taking care of themselves, and of no immediate danger to themselves. Their eating disorder was not considered to be a risk factor at that time, and admission on those grounds was not necessary. 

I repeatedly asked for the treating clinicians to consult with WAEDOCS to get advice, and was repeatedly told that my grandchild did not fit the criteria for admission and they did not consider it necessary to ask for any advice. 

My grandchild was discharged with instructions to see their GP and to continue seeing their psychologist. 

I would have liked them to be admitted to an appropriate mental health ward, where they could recover and receive some therapy to better equip them to go on in a better frame of mind. There is only one hospital that has a mental health unit that is age-appropriate and trained to deal with eating disorder behaviour and unfortunately, we do not live in the right catch area so my grandchild was discharged. I greatly fear that there will be a repeat event and I can only hope that I am there to get them the help they need when that time comes.