Cleveland's first responders are always on the run, responding to 911 calls. And many of these calls involve mental health crises.
"Medic 4, where I work over on W. 25th Street and Lorain, it does 6,000 calls a year," said Sommerfelt, secretary for the Cleveland Association of Rescue Workers."We had 1,766 EMS calls from just 25 individuals last year," Sommerfelt said."One person we took to the hospital 181 times. And it's obvious to us that if we're taking someone to the hospital 181 times, we're really not solving their problem.
"Right now, we're working with a model that has teams made up of a minimum of two people. That includes a behavioral health specialist such as a social worker and a peer, an individual with lived experience, and they go through training," said Scott Osiecki, chief executive officer for the ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County.
"We want to make sure that people that need to be at the table need to be there, so that's why I say we are definitely open to talking with the city of Cleveland, EMS, and other folks as well," Osiecki said. "There are current programs, one very close to home in Cincinnati that utilizes paramedics and a licensed clinician to respond to appropriate 911 calls, that are triaged in order to determine which calls police don't need to respond to," said Angela Cecys, senior strategist, Public Safety and Health for the City of Cleveland.
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