The lack of mental health help in North Santa Barbara County isn’t a new issue.
It comes up repeatedly. We don’t have enough inpatient beds for involuntary or voluntary mental health holds. We need more outpatient facilities. If you need emergency help, head to Marian Regional Medical Center’s emergency room and plan to wait a while to get transferred to someplace that can provide long-term care.
Sounds like fun for everyone! The patient, the medical personnel, the hospital that isn’t really licensed to provide long-term mental health care, and for the other people in the waiting room who need emergency physical health care. It’s a real lose-lose situation, amirite?!
We don’t currently have the beds we need to serve the community in need of them, and a state law that goes into effect in January would officially increase the number in need—from 1 percent of the population to 10 percent! That’s according to the Santa Barbara County Behavioral Wellness Department, which gave a presentation on the law at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting.
Basically, the law will increase the number of people who can be put on an involuntary mental health hold (5150) because it expands the definition of an individual who can’t meet their own basic needs (aka is severely disabled) due to mental illness to include severe substance use issues, among other things.
“It’s going to be a whole new population added to the rosters,” Behavioral Wellness Director Toni Navarro said. “We have to plan for that.”
She said there are practical realities, such as staffing, beds for treatment or placement, and sites where people can get the care they need. And the practical reality is: The county doesn’t really have much of any of it.
Marian President and CEO Sue Andersen said her hospital treats people who need detox, coming off drug overdose and alcohol issues, and those who have other mental health issues. But there aren’t any inpatient care facilities or psychiatric health facility beds in North County to transfer those in severe crisis to and only two outpatient care facilities.
“Our county is really lacking in facilities to send these people to; our concern is these people will stay in our emergency departments, they will stay in our emergency units,” Andersen said. “The county needs to take a hard look at mental health resources in the county.”
She added that every psychiatric company that evaluates the area says it’s gravely underbedded for mental health services. And the brunt of providing those services fall on local hospitals.
“The hard part for us at hospitals is we’re not psychiatric hospitals, we’re not trained in that.”
So, is the county finally going to be able to do something about it?
I wouldn’t hold my breath. The county’s track record sucks. The state isn’t giving out money to fund the new law. The board has talked about this issue before, promised to talk about it in the future, to talk about potentially allocating funds to do more to address the gaps, and then … crickets.
Supervisors voted to allow Behavioral Wellness to put off implementing the new law, known as Senate Bill 43, for two years. Navarro said she hopes to be able to pull the trigger before that timeline is up.
Maybe she’ll find the magic sauce.
The Canary doesn’t believe in magic. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 21-31, 2023.