Officers to spend less time in hospital
People in mental distress to receive expedited treatment
Essex County OPP officers will be spending less of their time sitting with people in mental distress at the hospital thanks to a new memorandum of agreement between police and Leamington District Memorial Hospital.
Under the transfer of care memorandum of agreement, people who are in mental distress who have been taken into police custody will receive expedited treatment from a health-care worker.
“We wanted to design a standard approach for transitioning patients that were arriving to the emergency department with the OPP,” said Essex OPP Insp. Glenn Miller. “Any individual that we would apprehend pursuant to the Mental Health Act is required to be transported to the nearest medical facility.”
Under the Mental Health Act, police officers have to make a decision if a person appears to be acting in a disorderly manner and may be a danger to themselves or others, and if it is too dangerous to proceed by any other manner, police are to apprehend the person and take them to the nearest place for examination by a physician.
“What we wanted to accomplish is we wanted to ensure there is a standardized approach for patients arriving at the hospital and primarily that was certainly to ensure the safety of the patients, the hospital staff, the police and the public,” said Miller.
“It certainly allows a much quicker transition for those individuals that are challenged through various mental-health challenges to receive the appropriate and timely response from health-care professionals.”
In the past, police officers would have to remain with the patient in the emergency room for as long as it took for them to be seen by a physician.
“Traditionally what has happened in the past was we would have more than one mental-health care call and as a result we could have a number of officers that would be required to be staying with those individuals waiting to be transitioned to medical care,” said Miller.
“And that certainly put a strain on resources. So now what it does, it allows for a much quicker transition and allows us to get back out on the road and serve our communities.”
Leamington District Memorial Hospital spokesman said the program will allow police officers to spend more time doing the job they should.
“The police are not mentalhealth experts and they need to do their job,” said Baker.
“It’s just really focusing on how we process a better level of immediate care so that things don’t escalate within the emergency department and certainly have them processed quicker and have them in care.”
The main points of the MOA are: to ensure a standardized approach to patients arriving to the Leamington District Memorial Hospital; to ensure the safety of patients, hospital staff, police and public; to ensure that patients who are accompanied by the OPP to the Leamington District Memorial Hospital are transitioned as quickly as possible from police to the hospital.