‘It is a crisis time’
Coronavirus pandemic has exacted a heavy mental toll, causing a rise in depression, anxiety
Nedret Gurler had not heard from her friend for several days. She knew something was wrong.
The two would talk on the phone and text often during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Gurler would drop off meals at her friend’s doorstep.
In one of their conversations, Gurler said, the woman shared details about her history of mental illness and attempts to take her own life. The long periods of isolation during the pandemic seemed to worsen the woman’s depression.
Gurler learned in August her friend had died by suicide in a vehicle parked in a lot at the Santa Fe Regional Airport.
“It was what broke the back of the camel,” Gurler said of the pandemic. “She didn’t see any way out.”
As the numbers of illnesses and deaths tied to COVID-19 continue to climb, another public health crisis is taking a toll in Santa Fe and nationwide: the onset and escalation
of mental and behavioral health struggles. The issue is particularly troubling in a state that has had among the highest poverty and suicide rates in the nation and has wrangled for decades with a deadly opioid epidemic.
The pandemic has upended countless lives — sharply increasing joblessness and food insecurity and putting health insurance, housing payments and other basic needs at risk. This, combined with the isolation residents have experienced from the state’s social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders, has led to a rise in depression and anxiety.
On any given day, 911 dispatchers in Santa Fe can be heard on a police scanner calling for emergency medical services for people who might be suffering a mental health crisis.
But tracking the exact number of reports tied to mental illness in Santa Fe, or assessing any rise since the pandemic arrived in March, is not easy.
Paul Joye, deputy chief of the Santa Fe Police Department, said calls for service often come into the agency labeled as a certain type of incident, and then responding officers learn at the scene the situation actually involves a person in crisis. Such an incident might initially be categorized as disorderly conduct, a welfare check, an ambulance assist, or a need for psychiatric or protective custody.
The department’s call logs from July, posted online, show officers responded to more than 1,425 calls for service that may have been related to mental health.
“This is usually due to violent or abnormal behavior that family, friends or onlookers observe and feel the need to call someone,” Santa Fe police Capt. Matthew Champlin said.
Even with training, responding to these calls can be difficult for police, Champlin said. “It requires the officer step into the role of an intermittent mental health care [worker] and learn to react appropriately, within the confines of the law and societal expectations, but also protect themselves and others from physical harm.”
Joye said he was unable to quickly provide an analysis of whether COVID-19 has led to a significant change in the number of such calls because the office doesn’t maintain that type of data in its monthly statistics.
However, he said, “From an anecdotal standpoint, we have seen many people affected by the current situation nationwide and the added stress due to COVID-19.”
Champlin said the department recently updated its records management system, and the new program will allow officers to better track mental health crisis calls for service. These calls are now labeled “psychiatric abnormal behavior,” he said.
Since June 16, Santa Fe officers have respond to about 115 of them.
Nonprofits see rise in need
Nonprofit leaders in the state say more people are asking for help, whether by calling 911 during a crisis or by tapping into local behavioral and mental health care services.
“Certainly nationwide and in New Mexico we have seen, you know, very significant increases in behavioral health needs and behavioral health crises as a result of COVID,” said David Ley, a psychologist and the executive director of New Mexico Solutions, the Albuquerque-based nonprofit that is managing preparations for the Santa Fe County Behavioral Health Crisis Center.
The normal day-to-day stresses are exacerbated by the effects of COVID-19, Ley said.
The pandemic has put basic needs in peril: housing, food, education and steady income. Connecting people to these resources is the most effective way to improve behavioral health, Ley said.
That’s where the Connect program comes in.
The city of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County and local organizations such as LifeLink and La Familia Medical Center have joined to create a network of resources for people in need.
Jennifer Romero, manager of the county’s health care assistance program, said people need more than access to care to boost their well-being.
If their basic needs aren’t met, she said, leaving them fearful of eviction, hunger or difficulty paying utility bills, “it’s going to be really difficult for them to really benefit from the services that they receive.”
Connect, which has been operating for four years, began accepting self-referrals online in April through the city and county’s websites to increase its reach to households with hardships due to the effects of the pandemic.
From April to June, requests for food assistance through Connect tripled compared with the first quarter of the year, while housing and shelter requests doubled. The program saw 10 times more requests for income support.
Organizations are finding ways to address a greater demand for services and deliver them while complying with the state’s public health orders. While some are offering in-person services, much is done through phone and video.
There are some benefits to the changes, Ley said, because they allow workers to engage with patients in their own environments.
“We’ve actually had a couple of incidents where our staff interrupted suicides that were in progress because we were doing a phone or video contact with patients rather than them coming into the office,” he said.
Stacey Frymier, interim executive director of Las Cumbres, said the nonprofit has seen not only an increase in referrals for services but also a rise in the intensity of families’ needs.
Providers at Las Cumbres, which focuses on services for children, have seen an escalation in behavioral issues due to the added stressors, Frymier said.
Grandparents raising grandchildren and homes with undocumented immigrants are some of the most vulnerable, Frymier added.
Triage center moving forward
One behavioral health initiative put on hold amid the pandemic was the launch of county-operated mobile crisis services, which was supposed to happen April 1.
Rachel O’Connor, director of community services for Santa Fe County, said those resources are being used at the city’s midtown campus emergency shelter by providing behavioral health services, group and individual therapies, case management and Medicaid enrollment.
Construction of the county’s Behavioral Health Crisis Center is expected to be completed in October, O’Connor said, which is where the mobile crisis team and others providing crisis
intervention services will be located, along with the Santa Fe Recovery Center’s detoxification program.
The county also plans to invest in a mental health app to help people deal with the stress and depression that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, O’Connor said. The app should be available for use in the next couple of months for all county residents.
“What we are trying to provide is expansive services for anyone because this is not just a crisis time for people who are vulnerable,” O’Connor said. “It is a crisis time for all of us.” Gurler understands that. Before her friend died, she said, she visited the woman and asked if she could hug her, realizing they both missed human touch.
“When I asked her if I could hug her, she told me she needed that so bad,” Gurler said. “And I hugged her for almost a minute.
“I cradled her head. We were both sobbing.”