Chester County Emergency Response

Chester County

Emergency Response Emergency Response

BY MICHAEL IVERS

In just two short years, the United States of America has confronted, sometimes reluctantly, some ugly truths about itself: A nation divided by polarizing politics, incendiary rhetoric that culminated in an assault on our democracy on January 6th, the fallout from which is only now just beginning to be understood. It is important to recognize that this attack on the Capitol pitted Americans against Americans, not wholly unlike skirmishes that preceded the Civil War, including protestors violently assaulting uniformed police officers. In the days and weeks following the insurrection, three police officers, from the US Capitol Police and the DC Metropolitan Police Department, killed themselves.

One of the ugly truths about America and its law enforcement systems is that this nation’s emergency mental health and crisis is unnecessarily stigmatizing and it criminalizes individuals in crisis, some of whom may be living with a serious and persistent mental illness, some of them simply unable to cope with a life struggle or stress.

This is not opinion; it is fact, and it is easily proven without any citation, footnote, or statistic. Who responds to psychiatric emergency/emotionally disturbed person calls in America? It’s the police. Why?

Is being mentally ill in America a crime? If you peek outside of your blinds during a psychiatric emergency playing out across the street, you will certainly understand that, yes, it is as you watch three or four police cars roll up to the neighbor’s house, and you see Sarah or John being led out of their house with their hands cuffed behind their back and placed in the back seat of a radio car.

Why?

Did they commit a crime? In many instances, no, they didn’t, but this is how America has decided that it’s appropriate to respond to people who need emergency psychiatric treatment. Nationwide, it is estimated that roughly 20% of all radio calls coming in to police dispatch centers are mental health or substance related. Research revealed that 84% of police agencies surveyed said mental health call volume is only rising, and 63% responded that on-scene call time has increased. Police resources are strapped and, shockingly, not all officers are trained in how to appropriately respond to a psychiatric emergency and de-escalate the situation at hand. Some even argue that just the presence of a police officer on-scene, with their firearm and handcuffs and power to take away liberty and life is, de-facto, an escalation, regardless of whatever crisis intervention training they have had.

Speaking of that firearm, it is estimated that, since 2015, 25% of all people killed by law enforcement officers have had a mental illness—far more are injured by officers in violent takedowns, though stats aren’t as carefully tracked.

The National Alliance of Mental Illness states that the average length of time between first onset of mental illness symptoms to initial accessing treatment is eleven years. It is well established that one of the barriers to treatment-seeking is the fear of stigma. “What will people say?” What will the neighbors think? This is exacerbated by the fact that it’s the cops who pull up and create a frightening hubbub on the street when someone is in crisis. But there is another way; we do not have to accept this as “just how things are” in America.

Chester County Emergency Response (CCER) is a burgeoning non-profit psychiatric emergency response system that, once fully licensed, funded, and supported, aims to integrate itself into the emergency response community in Chester County and respond to psychiatric emergencies and mental health crisis situations.

The system will ensure that, whenever appropriate, a Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance staffed with specially trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) will be the primary unit responding. These EMTs will be fully trained and certified by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, with supplemental training on psychiatric emergency response, to attempt to de-escalate crises and handle and talk to and support individuals in distress in a trauma-focused, recovery-oriented manner.

The bottom line is this: human beings in need of help don’t need a police car, they don’t need handcuffs, they need a stretcher and an ambulance in order to get to a hospital. Nobody in America should arrive at a hospital for psychiatric treatment in the back seat of a police car. Period.

CCER will be funded by a mix of public, private, individual, foundation, and corporate support and will not be a part of any hospital/health system but will operate independently, governed by Pennsylvania Department of Health and EMTALA rules and regulations; it will have a Medical Director and clear objectives, policies, procedures, and directives. CCER’s EMTs will also be deputized and authorized to execute 302 (involuntary psychiatric hospitalization) warrants.

It is imperative to understand CCER’s role in psychiatric emergency response: its aim is not to replace law enforcement, but to work in concert with them. Police will still have to respond to the vast majority of calls for aid, but officers will be on-hand in a secondary capacity, merely to ensure scene-safety and resolve conflict with combative/violent individuals. CCER’s vision is to de-emphasize law enforcement’s role in “EDP” calls and allow them to leave the scene expeditiously so they can be freed to respond to other calls in the community. Officers will no longer need to be tied up waiting with patients for an open bed, file 302 petitions, etc. — that will be CCER’s designated responsibility.

CCER is enthusiastic about assisting Chester County in revolutionizing mental health emergency and crisis response, and serving the residents of Chester County with dignity, respect, and compassion, and ensuring that they access the care they need, because anybody in Chester County could need emergency psychiatric care; anybody. And everybody deserves to access it in a way that is as devoid of stigma, shame, and guilt as possible.