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Mom: Daughter Waited 10 Days in ER for Mental-Health Bed

LEWISTON, Maine — A New Hampshire woman says her daughter spent more than a week in the common area of a Maine emergency room there was no other place for her when she suffered a mental health crisis.

Maureen Cahill of Northwood, New Hampshire, said her 19-year-old daughter never should've been in the ER for that long.

WMTW-TV reported Friday that her daughter had been moved into an in-patient unit after 10 days of waiting.

Jeff Austin of the Maine Hospital Association said there's a "crisis of people needing services."

St. Mary's Hospital in Lewiston declined to say whether she was a patient.

The hospital's chief medical officer for behavioral health tells WMTW-TV that a portion of the emergency room was built specifically for mental health patients but that it's not a place for long-term care.