The Nelson area has seen a dramatic increase in police calls involving emotionally disturbed individuals this month, and the police department is struggling to keep up.
“This is not sustainable,” said police chief Wayne Holland, who plans to present his findings to Mayor Deb Kozak, city council and the Nelson Police Board.
“We’ve noticed a real spike. What we’re seeing now for the fifth year in a row, and for the same reasons that this was happening for the last four or five years, is we’ve become a centralized repository of services for people in mental health distress. They have come to Nelson to avail themselves of our services.”
He said this means the police are dealing with a number of mental health calls unmatched in the province, comparable only to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, where he used to work.
“How the heck is the smallest [municipal] police force in British Columbia dealing with this many calls of this nature? Of the four years I’ve been here, that’s what I’ve been dealing with. It’s what the heck to do about it. We’ve been championing Car 87, which pairs a police officer with a trained mental health worker.”
However, he said those calls have been ignored.
“I’m in distress myself, I think it’s safe to say.”
Sgt. Dino Falcone said the police force is feeling the strain.
“There have been double the number of calls involving emotionally disturbed people in January 2015 compared to January 2014,” he said. “And we haven’t even finished the month yet.”
Falcone and his fellow officers have been making trips back and forth from the hospital, ferrying suicidal, depressed and hallucinating residents.
“It makes it really challenging. We’re always the last resort, and we’re not trained mental health professionals. But man, we sure have a lot of exposure to it,” said Falcone.
“We know it’s a tough time of year, and that tends to make people depressed.”
Holland said the police force wants to help troubled individuals, but needs better tools and more resources to do so.
“The good news is we are the first responders. We’re always the pointy end of the stick. We’ll always be there for them.”
Cydney Higgins of Community Integrated Health Services said she couldn’t speak directly to the recent police disturbances, but expressed concern for the individuals in distress.
“Interior Health does share the community and police’s commitment to getting people in the community with mental health and substance use issues matched with the right services,” she said.
She noted that IH has established a mental health primary care integration team in Nelson, consisting of a full-time social worker as well as a dedicated outreach support worker, RN and a half-time nurse practitioner.
“It is taking an assertive outreach and intensive case management approach to get marginalized persons with mental health substance abuse problems connected to primary care and other ongoing services.”
IH increased the hours for both the RN and outreach support worker staffing in December.
“While we do not have resources for a dedicated mental health police unit [Car 87], the urgent response nurse is doing monthly ride-alongs with police so that we can better align our responses to clients in need.”
Pastor Jim Reimer with Our Daily Bread said the rise in mental health calls has been mirrored by a 50 per cent rise in residents coming through to take advantage of hot meals.
“People are feeling the economic pinch. We’re seeing a rise in the cost of living, from rentals to food, over the last year. People are anxious,” he said.
Mayor Deb Kozak said this issue was discussed at a recent meeting with the police.
“The conversation at that meeting was specifically Wayne looking for support and advice on mental health issues and how we move forward.”
She said the issue isn’t exclusive to the Kootenays. “It seems to be worldwide.”
Kozak said they are planning a symposium on the subject, potentially for spring. And she understands what the strain is doing to police morale. She echoed Holland’s concerns that other areas of policing are being neglected.
“If you have 17 officers, and one or two are injured, it’s not just like you can call someone and say ‘can you come to work today?’ They’re a very specialized service. The questions is how do we deal with these critical incidents when we’re working shorthanded?”
As for the $311,000 budget increase Holland is looking for, Kozak would not commit to it. “It’s a really big decision,” she said.
