John MacDonald: Don't panic about the police mental health call-out changes

From today, the police don’t intend to respond to every mental health callout. But I don’t think we’re going to see any major difference. I’ll tell you why shortly,. And it’s based on an experience I had on Friday night.

So if you’re worried about the police saying “not our department” if you call up, as of today, about someone having a mental health issue - don’t panic.

But you know the background to this and what’s led to today’s change with the threshold for transporting mental health patients increasing; there’ll be fewer visits to mental health clinics; and police handovers to mental health staff will be shorter than what they have been.

So 11 percent. That’s a key stat. Before today, 11 percent of police work involved mental health call-outs. And, as Chris Cahill from the Police Association was saying on Newstalk ZB today, whenever the cops are called-out to one of these jobs - it can keep them away from doing other police work for hours.

He says, on average, a mental health callout keeps police tied-up for three hours - sometimes as long as five or six hours.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Morning's Podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB from today.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
From today, the police might be turning up to every
mental health call out. So until now, eleven percent of
police jobs involved this type of work. Not anymore. Well
that's the police's intention as of today. But I'll tell
you what. I don't think we're going to see any
major difference, and I'll tell you why shortly. And it's

(00:36):
based on an experience I had on Friday night. So
if you're worried about the police saying not our department,
if you call up as of today about someone having
a mental health issue, well don't panic and I'll turn
you why shortly. But you know the background to this
and what's led to the change. With the threshold for

(00:56):
transporting mental health patients increasing, there will be fewer visits
to mental health clinics. This is by the police, and
police handovers to mental health staff will be shorter than
what they have been. So the keystat eleven percent before today,
eleven percent of police work involved mental health callouts. And
as Chris Carhill from the Police Association was saying on

(01:18):
the radio today, whenever the cops are called out to
one of these jobs. It can keep them away from
doing other police work for hours, he was saying this morning.
On average, a mental health call out keeps police tied
up for three hours, sometimes as long as five or
six hours. So Chris carhile he's pleased about the changes

(01:38):
coming into force today. One thing though he isn't happy
about is that it's been forced by the police. As
he said this morning Health New Zealand, it just hasn't
come to the party on this one. And he says
police will still turn up if people are at risk
of harming themselves or harming someone else. But he says

(01:58):
if nothing changes, police will still be swamped by mental
health call outs, and that's why these changes have to happen.
The reason the police gets so involved, by the way,
is that police officers, they are the only people who
have the power to contain people, so they can be
invaluable in situations where someone is mentally distressed. Chris Carhill,

(02:20):
he says the experience overseas where police have pulled back
from mental health call outs, he says patients have ended
up getting the treatment they need sooner. Now I don't
know about that. I can't confirm or deny because I
haven't been able to find anything to support that online today.
And remember too, it is Chris Carhill's job to represent
police officers who are at the coal face when it

(02:41):
comes to mental health call outs and who know full
well how they impact their ability to do other police work,
because that's been the argument the police have made all along.
Not just because someone is in a state of mental despair,
it doesn't mean that they're a criminal. It makes perfect sense,
but as we know, sometimes a person can be more

(03:03):
inclined to commit criminal behavior than they usually would because
of their mental distress. That's why the police in recent
years seemed to have become the default responders in situations
like these, which is a situation I found myself and
on Friday, it was about five point thirty five thirty

(03:23):
Friday night. I was in the center of town, not
far from where I am at the moment, just down
the road from work, and I saw this guy who
looked like he was crossing the road one minute, then
walking back onto the footpath and was going around circles,
then trying across the road again, and drivers were turning
at him, and there were a couple of people watching
him and I went up to them and said, is

(03:44):
that guy okay? You reckon now? Just as an aside,
a weird aside. What was weird was the number of
people who seemed prepared just to watch what was going on.
There were people standing on the balconies of their apartments
looking down on the street. And then another guy was
closer to the action than he was, a guy I
spoke to initially. Then the guy himself who caught my attention,

(04:05):
who was He seemed pretty dazed. He came up towards
me and I tried to have a word with him,
but he wasn't making much sense. He was wearing a
bike helmet and I could see a bike nearby, but
he said he hadn't fallen off his bike. He just
wasn't making sense, and he tried to walk off in
the opposite direction of where the bike was. So me
and a few young guys who were staying at the

(04:26):
backpackers across the road, we got him to stop and
got them to sit down on the footpath, and I
knew I had to call for help, And at that
point I thought we were dealing potentially with someone who
was diabetic or something like that, So I called Saint
John's so called by moment got through the ambulance and
I went through the rigmarole of describing what was going on,
and the AMBO operator got me to ask the guy

(04:46):
who's on any medication? So I did that. I said,
are you on any medication? Mate? And he muttered something
about mental health, but that was about it. So I
passed that info on to the operator and they said
they'd logged the job and asked me and these other
guys to stay with this guy until help arrived. Not
long after. Not long after that had a cop car

(05:08):
turned up, and as soon as the cops got out,
it was clear they knew what had been going on,
and they said that the AMBO people were snowed under
and they'd asked the police to deal with it. So
they had to chat with this guy. They found some
prescription stuff in his bag. They seem to think that
he hadn't taken his meds, and so what they did
is they put him in the back of the police
car to take him to hospital to get checked out.

(05:28):
Now what this tells me, and what this told me,
is that the police can say that as of today,
they're not going to be the first port of call
for mental health call outs anymore. But I don't see
that changing in any great way. And the reason I
think that is based on what I saw happen on
Friday night. Even though I called ambulance, the police ended
up being sent to deal with it because Saint John's

(05:50):
was snowed under and didn't have capacity to respond, which
is not a new thing our Rambo services. They're constantly
snowed under, aren't they. And this is why I see
very little changing as of today. And this is why
I think the police are going to be very disappointed
when they really that the number of mental health call
outs are dealing with doesn't change all that much. And

(06:10):
do you know what, it doesn't actually bother me because
of the ambulance can't help and the police won't help.
Where does that leave us?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
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