John Clare, the police chief of a small town in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia, is plagued by a growing problem. That means police are more likely to detain, transport and hold people in mental health crises in hospitals. .
Officers from Clare’s Marion Police Station (21 people) crisscross the state transporting patients for court-ordered treatment, only to discover there are no available beds at the hospital they are being transported to. There is also. Patients sometimes end up spending days in the waiting room or emergency room under the supervision of Clare staff.
This is a problem for law enforcement agencies around Virginia, with advocates, lawyers and leaders like Clare saying it is tying up police resources and contributing to poor patient outcomes. are doing. Over the past five years, this type of transfer has been the largest single category of cases handled by the Marion Division.
“We’re against the wall,” said Claire, a military veteran and former lay minister. Claire sometimes shuttles patients herself, making a nearly 15-hour round trip last month to a coastal city on the other side of the state.
The issue comes at a time when Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration says there is an overreliance on hospitalizations at a time of heightened need, and a widespread belief that Virginia’s mental health care system urgently needs reform. It highlights a perceived consensus.
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“People were really struggling.”
About a year ago, Youngkin, a Republican, launched an initiative aimed at transforming the way mental health care is delivered by creating a system that ensures people get the treatment they need without delay and necessarily in their own communities. We have begun an ambitious initiative. Confinement within the hospital reduces the burden on both patients and law enforcement.
While Virginia’s woes may be especially acute, Youngkin is not alone in highlighting the issue. Mental health care in the United States has grown as the pandemic has brought new levels of isolation, fear, and grief on top of existing crises such as rising drug overdose deaths and hardships burdening teenage girls. Improvement has become an unprecedented priority. Roughly half of adults with some type of mental illness were not receiving treatment in 2022, according to survey data from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
“We know there are a lot of partisan rifts across the country, but right now, whether it’s red states or blue states, there are a lot of I found that there was support,” he said. National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.
Youngkin’s emphasis on mental health evolved during the 2021 election campaign, with a growing number of people, from doctors to local officials to police, calling for mental health support, said John Rittell, the Cabinet secretary overseeing Virginia’s efforts. It is said that he begged them to give priority to the
“It was obvious that people were really struggling,” Littell said.
“Please help me immediately”
Since then, Yonkin has won bipartisan support for his “Right Help, Right Now” initiative and praise from advocates, though some are concerned about how things are progressing. Although the governor has said in his press office that the effort has passed key milestones, he will not be able to seek a second consecutive term and will be leaving office in two years.
The initiative’s broad goals include training behavioral health workers and efforts to stem the tide of overdose deaths, which are killing an average of seven Virginians a day in 2022. Youngkin signed dozens of related bills into law. He secured hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding and proposed even more.
A “foundation” part of the plan, as Littell explains, is to create a system that delivers same-day help to people in crisis, which would eliminate the task of transporting most patients to the hospital. This should also alleviate some of the burden placed on Clare Police Station. If the court determines that there is a risk to yourself or others.
The Yonkin administration will increase the number of mobile crisis teams, including clinicians, to respond to mental health emergencies and create more short-term stabilization centers to avoid patients having to leave their homes for hours for care. By doing so, we hope to build continuous care. .
A recent report from the state’s legislative watchdog agency underscores that need.
More than 20,000 temporary detention orders were issued in Virginia in fiscal year 2023, according to a recent presentation to lawmakers. The report found that approximately 8,538 of these people experienced delays in receiving psychiatric treatment because they were deemed to be an immediate danger to themselves or others.
The report also raised concerns about law enforcement “drop-offs,” where police officers or sheriff’s deputies leave patients behind before accepting them into hospitals or other facilities. Recent testimony at a Congressional hearing suggested that drop-offs put some patients at risk of death.
Elsewhere in the United States, state policy concerns and approaches to improving mental health care vary.
States have tapped into federal coronavirus pandemic relief funds to strengthen access to care, and most governors have talked about mental health in their State of the State addresses in recent years. An analysis by the National Association of State Budget Officers found that most states list mental health as a budget priority.
Will that emphasis continue?
“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Katherine McGuire, chief advocacy officer for the American Psychological Association. They have to stick to it. ”
Virginia lawmakers are considering legislation this year at the intersection of law enforcement and mental health.
Clare said she hopes speaking candidly about her department’s experiences will help people understand the urgency of the issue. But he worries that the non-executive General Assembly, which is also working on controversial gambling and sports arena agreements, will rush to pass something that falls short of what is needed.
He estimates that the patients Clair transported across state lines cost his department thousands of dollars and had about 15 mental health-related consultations with his agency over the course of a year and a half. There is. One of them was about a suicide attempt.
After a long ride, the patient delivered a handwritten thank you note to the hospital director. After some time, she was returned to his department’s custody.
Clare said improvements should be made for both police and patients whose crisis can be exacerbated by time spent restrained in the back of a police car.
“We’re just inviting tragedy over and over again,” he said.
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Geoff Mulvihill contributed to this report from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
