On the mental health side of this coin....
I get compassion burnout. I do. I have it. My county has one mental health facility. The staff, like many, I suppose, are not interested in hard work.Just the fat paycheck. It is not uncommon for us to be contacted by a suicidal person, wanting help. Wanting to go in. Take them, drop them off, and, on a slow night have them out an hour later with a pamphmet of phone numbers. State law allows for a 72 hour involuntary Emergency Mental Health Evaluation. I made the mistake of calling it a "72 hour hold". The nurse asked me what I was talking about and when I told her, she smirked and said "we never hold them that long".
Yes, a vast majority around here have drug induced psychosis, from playing "Breaking Bad- The Home Game". That shouldn't change things.
I spent a lot of time on
this case. Both covering calls for service the night of while two of my cops assisted with scene security, to many, many training classes, including a powerful one taught by the Lt. that asked Smitty and King to go pick up the mook.
Recently the hose draggers are giving us a lot of guff. Emboldened by founded complaints on officers who said silly things on scene when there was a disagreement on the ability of a drunken homeless person to refuse treatment and transport, our guys were ridiculed for calling in a similar situation for a homeless guy with a gash in his head bleeding profusely, like we were interrupting their sleep over and Playstation marathon or something.
It came to a head a couple weeks ago when a guy hung himself at a bus stop with coax cable. We got there and cut the hanging guy down. By the time the fire guys got there he was consious and was asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. He said no. We said he had no choice. Fire said, he don't wanna go, he don't gotta go and left. We called back, requested EMS only, not fire. Fire showed back up, canceled the ambulance, and told us "we told you, he don't wanna go, he don't gotta go". State statutes were quoted and we were told to transport him ourselves. Luckily the ambulance crew were curious after reading the call the second time and disrgarded the disregard. It hasn't happened to me, yet, but I am waiting, I have a plan, and a digital recorder to cover myself.
We can't get people kept for mental health reasons for more than a couple of hours, sometimes with multiple trips a day. But somebody pushes a nurse's hand away as she tries to undress them, and if the arrest is not immediately made for felony battery (Battery on Healthcare Personnel-4th degree felony) then managers, directors, and chiefs of police are called. We had one nurse fired for fabricating a complaint when we refused to take several rather rude "no-s" for an answer with a violent woman that they did not want to admit to the facility. We had several voice recorders going and could refute her complaint point by point.
I have been doing CIT for 22 years- 15 years before it became mandatory for every one. Most of that time I was the only CIT guy on the shift. I know compassion burnout because I have it. But I can act around my personal feelings and do my job to an acceptable standard.
There is no accessable processes for people that have not reached the point of actively trying to hurt others or actually causing obvious harm to themselves. You are in acute, active crisis and are dangerous right now, or you wait weeks for care, possibly until you are dangerous to yourself or others and require intervention, and then you may not be interested in help. Or like the case of Hyde, being refused help for your chronic mental health problem from your own providers until you begin to act lethally. And then the providers expect us to move Heaven and Earth to remedy the situation. Which we endeavor to do to an acceptable standard despite not being our extravganza nor simians, initially.
pat