News Story - Idaho State Journal

Local police say the fact there are often “no vacancies” at Portneuf Medical Center’s behavioral health unit is having a negative impact on public safety.

When the unit has no room for new patients, law enforcement officers have to transport mentally ill individuals to facilities as far away as Boise. This can easily consume an entire shift for one or two officers, and drastically reduce police protection for Pocatello, Chubbuck and Bannock County.

In response, the Bannock County Commission is negotiating with the two health care providers that are interested in becoming a capital partner with the beleaguered PMC to make the addition of an expanded mental health facility part of any partnership deal.

At present, PMC has no plans to expand its 15-bed behavioral health unit, though the unit’s staff is working to re-configure existing space to possibly increase its capacity by up to four beds.

The problem reached a head earlier this month when Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen ended the longtime and illegal practice of allowing mentally ill individuals who had not been criminally charged to be temporarily placed at the county jail. This means that if PMC behavioral health is full, there is now no other nearby option for police to place noncriminal mentally ill people.

“It’s very clear that the intent of the law is not to hold the mentally ill in jail,” Nielsen said.

He added that the problem is the state has become “grossly negligent” by not providing adequate facilities for law enforcement to place mentally ill individuals. Nielsen said his jail has filled the gap for a long time but he could not allow the practice to continue because of the legal ramifications as well as the fact that a jail is not a humane place for those suffering from mental problems.

“I don’t want (the jail) to be a catchall for the state’s lack of mental health treatment,” the sheriff said. “Unfortunately they seem to be dumping this problem on law enforcement and we had to take a stand. If the only reason we’re putting a mentally ill individual in jail is because they’re dysfunctional or because of their illness, there’s got to be a better place to treat them and it’s not my jail.”

Noncriminal mentally ill pose problem

Jailing mentally ill individuals who have been criminally charged is not the issue. The law allows for that. But police frequently have to handle people with mental problems who have not committed a crime. People who attempt suicide fall into this category, as do individuals who if left unsupervised might hurt themselves or others. Individuals who are impaired due to drugs and/or alcohol fall into this category too if police officers feel there might be underlying mental health issues.

Local law enforcers say having to deal with mentally ill individuals has become a regular occurrence.

“I would say a conservative estimate is that three times a week my department has to deal with someone who’s having mental health issues,” Nielsen said. “Three of our four last SWAT calls were for people who were mentally ill.”

In noncriminal cases, when officers identify someone as possibly having a mental disorder, they first take the individual to the PMC emergency room for an evaluation. If it’s decided the person needs to be committed to a mental health facility, the officers first check if space is available at PMC’s behavioral health unit. If it’s full, mental health facilities in Idaho Falls, and then Twin Falls, and lastly Boise are checked.

Local law enforcers say the wait in the emergency room is between two and four hours and when you add the trip to even the mental health facility in Idaho Falls and the associated time spent there, a single mentally ill individual could easily take two officers an entire eight-hour shift to deal with.

Local police say they will always send two officers to transport a female mentally ill patient or to transport any patient who is violent or dangerous in any way.

Even if only one officer transports the patient, for the Sheriff’s Department or Chubbuck police that could leave only one other officer on duty.

“It could leave one poor guy out there all by himself,” Chubbuck Police Chief Randy Severe said. “I might only have two officers on duty for the entire night. If both of them have to transport someone, they’ll call a supervisor who has to make a command decision to call someone at home and get them out of bed to get dressed and come in. Or the supervisor might tell the on-duty guys to wait for the next officer to start his shift before transporting the guy.”

Having a reduced number of officers on duty increases response time to incidents and makes for a more dangerous environment for police because there might not be any immediate backup. All this, Severe said, decreases public safety.

A costly problem for police

The combination of the limited space at PMC’s behavioral health unit and police no longer placing noncriminal mentally ill individuals in the county jail is expected to cost local law enforcement agencies tens of thousands of dollars for overtime and fuel.

Nielsen said the Sheriff’s Department will likely spend $50,000 annually to transport people with mental problems who have committed no crime to facilities outside Bannock County.

Pocatello Police Chief J.R. Miller said he expects his department to pay an extra $20,000 to $30,000 annually in salary costs alone, while Severe said he is not sure how it will impact the Chubbuck Police Department’s budget.

Although Pocatello police have more officers on duty at any given moment than the Sheriff’s Office or Chubbuck police, Miller said taking any officers off the streets to transport a mentally ill person poses “a huge public safety issue.”

“If I have a limited shift on duty in the city and have to send two officers to transport someone to Boise, I’ll generally call in (off-duty) people to see if they want to come in to work and do the transport,” Miller said. “I don’t want to cut down our street patrol. It’s not fair to our citizens to send my street patrol out of the city, so I try to bring people in on overtime.”

Charlie Aasand, director of PMC’s behavioral health unit, said he can understand why police are upset about having to spend so much time dealing with mentally ill individuals.

“When we’re full and they have to take a trip to Boise, and when that happens twice in the last six months, I understand why that ticks them off,” he said.

Aasand said he and other PMC officials are trying to figure out a solution to the problem that would reduce police involvement with mentally ill individuals.

“We don’t want to put this back on the police. We want to make it easy for law enforcement to come to the emergency room and do their duty and get out as soon as possible,” Aasand said.

Aasand said the problem has actually been brewing for the past several months.

The behavioral health unit has been full a lot since the beginning of the year, causing law enforcement to look at the jail more and more as an option for the placement of the mentally ill.

This document was originally published online on Monday, August 11, 2008

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