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Friday, February 10, 2012
City police expect to face more mentally ill people in crisis
by Kathleen Haley, published on September 2, 2009 at 7:13 PM
Storyline: City Budget
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The city expects that its police officers will face more mentally ill people in crisis as a result of budget cuts to Sacramento County's Department of Behavioral Health Services. The budget cuts that will ricochet back to the city are spurred by the state: The state is providing less money to the county for mental health, and the county’s resulting cuts will affect the city, according to a Sept. 1 report from city officials.
Sacramento County expects to lose more than $10 million in state funding that would go toward its Behavioral Health Services, according to the city’s report. The state is dropping the funding because of its ongoing budget crisis.
To address the lack of mental health funding, the county department intends to shut down its crisis stabilization unit and cut 50 of 100 beds at the Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center on Stockton Boulevard, the report notes. At the crisis stabilization unit, adults have received crisis intervention and stabilization services for up to 23 hours, according to the county's website. But the cuts at the county mean the city will face a larger burden to address citizens’ mental health problems.
“A reduction of these services will have a negative impact on our ability to deliver services to the community,” the city’s report states. “We anticipate a significant increase in calls for service for people in crisis, and an increase in arrests as our options will be severely limited.”
Sacramento Police Department spokesman Norm Leong said the police have been dealing with occasional closures at the county mental health treatment center for months. At various times, the center has also not been able to accept new patients, Leong said.
The police department responds to calls about people who cannot take care of themselves, or who are suicidal or dangerous to others, Leong said. When there was adequate county funding, the city police would take the mentally ill person to the county’s mental health treatment center, he explained.
Now, the police department has been trying to take mentally ill people to local hospitals or facilities, depending on the individual’s health insurance, Leong said.
The police can also arrest the mentally ill person if he or she is charged with a crime, he said, emphasizing that there must be a criminal reason in order for the police to make the arrest. The Sacramento County Main Jail has mental health facilities and mental treatment, he noted.
Finding a way for the person to receive mental health treatment “ultimately is the goal,” Leong said.
The police department does not keep statistics on the number of mentally ill people with a criminal charge who are booked at jail instead of in a mental health facility, he said.
Other state cuts affecting the city include the state’s plan to take $19.6 million from the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency in 2010. The state plans to take another $4 million from the city in fiscal year 2011, according to the city’s report.
The report also notes that the state will cut $1.3 million in grant funding for Sacramento Department of Parks and Recreation programs that serve disabled teens and provide child care and adult day care.
The report to the Sacramento City Council on budget cuts is available here.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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Also, I have worked at the main jail and contrary to what you state there are NO actual mental health services there--the third floor is a 24 hour lock-down floor where they remove ALL clothing and do not provide any medication for up to a week due to the complete mismanagement of the medical contract there--they are very understaffed and woefully untrained. There is also extremely limited space for the mentally ill and they are usually housed in the general population. Remember, this is a jail that has had 8 suicides in the last few years and used the "prostraint" chair to control inmates. It is barbaric.
We have sunk so low; California is equivalent to a 3rd-world country. I am ashamed to be an American.
God Bless America
In answer to your question, no, I am not high yet. But I am considering it later to clear my head of all of this disinformation from the left.
There is a glint of truth in what you say, but that is all. In most large cities there are General hospitals where the poor can go if they need serious help. They do not have to pay if they do not have the money, but they are expected to pay something if they can. In every small village throughout the country there is a free clinic that will take you any time of the day or night, if they determine you need to go to a hospital; they arrange your transportation to the nearest hospital. Most from small villages go to the general hospitals.
For everyone that works in Mexico, you and your employer pay into the IMMS, which is a kind of health maintenance program with doctors, clinics, and hospitals that they can go to. If you work for the government you have the ISSSTE, and you pay according to what you can afford and can go to hospitals, etc that deliver services to the government employees. There is also a group for the oil, telephone, and electrical workers. Again you pay what you can afford in all of these groups, it is taken from your pay just like it is here and covers your family.
And then of course there are the private medical practices and hospitals also. This is the one that I personally am most acquainted with, but being as I married into an indigenous family down there, I am also familiar with the other systems.
The only glint of light in your statement is the fact that because of the way the hospitals are run, they cannot afford to carry large supplies of medications. If the family has enough money, they are forced to go to the local pharmacies and purchase the medications needed to be used on their family member. If they cannot, there are charitable groups they can go to, and that go to the hospitals, mostly the Catholic Church, and get the things they need. I did not see one person go without what they needed because of the natural charity of the Mexican people. It also cuts down on the use of $15.00 Aspirin.
Now, what you most likely fell victim of while you visited Mexico was the Gringo scam, where locals will tell tourist they cannot get help in an attempt to get money.
As to your statement that the Mexican government kicks their people to the curb if they need medical help is just uneducated ranting. Do some research on the web and try actually living in Mexico, WITH THE PEOPLE, as I did for almost ten years and you will soon learn the truth. I almost died of congestive heart failure and needed a heart transplant while living in Mexico. I was in 4 different hospitals in Guadalajara, and at that time it cost me $25.00 a day for a private room with 2 full time nurses, TV, and a beautiful little private courtyard with a fountain. I understand that now this would cost me about $50.00 a day. I had fantastic care from very sharp doctors and the cost was so little I was astounded. Even the transplant doctors that reviewed my records here were impressed with what they saw.
The way they treat their mentally ill is also very astonishing, but it would make this post even longer. Sorry for being so long winded.
God Bless America
I should have said IMSS or Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social.
ISSSTE is Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado.
God Bless America
Keep name calling Mr. think you know it all, your argument sound weak unless you insult someone right?
I am sure that your father is not one of the exploiters of Mexico that sets up phony substandard sweat shops to exploit the Mexican people, especially the women, and makes the environment un-livable around them. He would not be involved in contributing to the rapes and murders of hundreds of Mexican female fabrica workers in Ciudad Juarez were the rich fabrica owners will not even light the parking lots the women have to walk through to get to and from work. I am sure of that. No decent Human Being would do such a thing.
I was not privileged to live in the big cities (actually I did not want to), and only traveled there once in a while, and when I was desperately ill. I was fortunate enough to live in a small fishing village on the central west coast of Mexico, called, off all things, Aticama in the state of Nayarit, Municipal San Blas. I think at the most there were about 5-9 other Americans, Canadians, and European there at one time, and it only had one public phone.
On my wife’s Rancho we had no electricity, no running water, and washed body and clothing in a 20 ft jungle waterfall. I was a gringo in paradise. So you are far better educated in the big city and expat compounds then I, by your own admission.
I traveled all the time to the capitol city of Nayarit, Tepic, and in nine years only saw two people sleeping on the streets at night. I was astonished to see that because it was so rare. In Aticama and the surrounding villages the ajidos gave homes to mentally ill people to live in. I know because my wife was a member and spokesperson in the ajido of Aticama, and I saw it happen.
What you, trapper and thsas are touting are just blatant lies from expats that live in gringo compounds because basically they do not like America or Mexicans. I met plenty like you down there. Spending several months a year in Mexico and still paying 47% I am sure that your Mexican home is in one of the gated villas that cordon off the beaches so even the Mexicans cannot swim in their own oceans. And because of you everything is priced so high that the locals cannot even afford to shop in their own markets and buy the basic needs for survival.
I would give you a URL to the site with pictures of how I lived in Mexico with my indigenous wife (half Huichol and half Cora), but I would not want you going over there spewing your lies about the culture, as they are in enough trouble at this time because of interference from do-gooding gringas like yourself. People that are more worries about the Mexican dogs and cats then the people.
I willl give you a blind site where I store some of my pics.
http://prose-workshop.com/chavie@me.bmp
http://prose-workshop.com/easterpuddingl.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/water8.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/roof4.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/waterfall8.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/tub2.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/chavieandchavie.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/mother.jpg
http://prose-workshop.com/hut1.jpg
You know nothing of Mexico except what you see from the barred window in you villa. If the medical treatment in Mexico is so bad, why do over one million Californians alone go to Mexico each year for treatment. It cost $250US+- a year to get full coverage medical in Mexico, this includes everything, I know I pay for my wife’s IMSS in Mexico each year.
I know what I am for, fixed terms, fixed taxes, and freedom of choice, and I have never been involved in any kind of law enforcement. You just struck out. Even if ANYTHING you have said about the Mexican people was true, they still take better care of their elderly, infirmed, and mentally impaired then us, the great advanced white race, does. Please show me a site that can dispute any of the Social services I wrote about in my statement.
Something else you should have learned from the people while down there. Poverty is not the lack of things as we whites judges it; poverty is the lack of compassion in your heart for other people. So, povresita para tu.
As to your ramblings above, go back and retake your junior high school debating class, you must of failed it the first time around.
God Bless America.
http://www.imss.gob.mx/
http://www.issste.gob.mx/index2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Mexico
http://www.medtogo.com/mexico-health-care-system.html
I can get a lot more if you wrongly informed need further education.
Did Haley happen to ask why police not keep such statistics? That data is very important and educational to elected officials when making budget decisions.
Savemidtown is right. There are more incidents. For two days in a row a bearded man with a blanket thrown over his left shoulder was pacing up and down three midtown streets, shouting and cursing until he lost his voice for a while. He entered people's front yards and walked up to their stairs and cursed the residents there. When he started destroying a businesses' property, and pedestrians felt their safety was threatened, they called PD, but PD never responded.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/60minutes/main3833797.shtml
To your point advocate, Federal income tax at 36%+and State 11%+ seems to get rates up there pretty fast. Add other required wage withholding like SSN, etc., then add your spent sales tax, property insurance, car plate taxes, utility taxes, (look at your utility bills, taxs are near 40%). I think all told, taxes are really near 70%?
I dont think you can claim that anything our family has gotten was "free".
"Nurse shortage delays bookings at Sacramento County jail"
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2159810.html
(why doesn't the SacPress use hotlinks?)
And Officer Leong, many inmates are there for crimes that could be better handled at detox or true mental health centers, i.e., disturbing the peace or public intoxication, which would ease the incredible workload your dedicated officers must labor under.
Well, I had not called anyone anything until them, and since Bill was a long time authority on the subject and called us astroterfers, I just assumed return is fair play. I will defiantly apologies for calling anyone a dimwit, and will just say in the future they are not very smart, and basically know nothing about the health system in Mexico.
“So those irresponsible anti-American clowns mislead the public in order to stir up emotion.” Advocate.
“What an imbecile” Jim Knapp
“I think you're a plant, but that's irrelevant.” Ayatollah Gondola
I have seen other references to conservatives on this site as tea baggers, astroterfers, and conservative idiots in which you did not pull your little lecture on. So if you are going to play the “your being bad game, at least try to apply it with the appearance of equality.
But you do condone outright lies and misinformation, right? Because there is enough of it on all of these blogs.
God Bless Amercia