HONOLULU (KHON2) — The state is focusing on a crisis resource hub to divert mentally ill people from emergency rooms and jails.
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The city's $17.2 million Iwilei Homeless Resource Center will open from 2022 to June 2023 until the Honolulu Emergency Medical Services Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement (CORE) program begins operating a medical respite facility on the ground floor. It was empty until then. The state is now setting up a crisis response hub in another part of the building. Services are outsourced to Care Hawaii.
“Right now, we're going to have a softer opening for patients who are acutely suicidal. They're MH1 patients, they're referred from law enforcement, they're from places like Queens and Castle ER. It could be other people who could be referred,” Dr. Koyanagi said.
The goal is to keep mentally ill people out of emergency rooms and prisons and instead stabilize them. According to the DOH, 17% of people with severe mental illness are in prison. The most common disorders range from drug and alcohol abuse to her PTSD. That's where pilot programs in local and circuit courts step in to divert certain individuals into treatment and potentially have their cases dismissed. The state Department of Health said the program has tested 675 people so far.
As for the post-booking trial diversion program, officials said there are several issues within the system. The Honolulu Prosecutor's Office said the district court program has been suspended because a risk assessment tool is not available at this time.
“The reason we're getting approval is because if we're successful, we move toward dismissing the case. All of these cases have the potential to be serious, like the stabbing of a staff member at Hawaii State Hospital. “We have to be careful because there's 'this,'” Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm said.
States want to have risk assessment tools readily available.
