The state Department of Health has opened a new behavioral health crisis center in Iwilei to help people experiencing mental health crises.
The center aims to treat people rather than send them to hospital emergency rooms or the criminal justice system.
The province is leasing the Iwilei Resource Center from the city for one year next year, with an option to renew at a later date.
Gov. Josh Green explained that the center is another tool the state has available to help people.
“We must take a different approach to complement and collaborate with traditional health systems, because we cannot forget the people who are suffering and fighting on the streets every day,” he said. Ta. “They have to be helped.”
First, the crisis center has about eight seats and serves people up to 24 hours a day. Over time, the center will eventually be able to support her 16 people.
After initial treatment, crisis center staff decide where the patient should go, whether that is to be discharged to a caseworker or to one of nine stabilization beds (patients can stay for up to 12 days). )become.
Dr. Chad Koyanagi, the Department of Health’s medical director for crisis continuity, led the project.
“Many of the people who benefit from coming to this facility have experienced more than their fair share of adversity in their lives,” he says.
“In many cases, they have struggled to find the right health care providers who understand what they need and connect them in the right way. Traditional settings may not be the best for these people, and these spaces were intentionally created in trauma-informed care.”
For now, the center will handle suicidal patients, especially those who call the 988-CARES hotline.
Several bills moving through the state Legislature would expand the types of patients behavioral health crisis centers can accept and provide funding to open other centers.
