Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Lance Burdett: Former Police Officer on the new approach to mental health cases

Transcript

Lance Burdett: Former Police Officer on the new approach to mental health cases · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now, the Mental Health Foundations launched a petition calling for
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: police to stop its plan to scale back attendance at
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: mental health callouts. Police, of course say they're spending too
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: much time escorting voluntary patients between hospitals and emergency departments
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and they want to fight crime. Form a police officer
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and mental health advocate, Lance Burdett has worken up early
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: for us. Good morning to your lads here. So how
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: much time on an eight hour shift for an average
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: cop is spent on mental health callouts?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Well, it can be quite a bit of time. And
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: it's not just a matter of transporting them. The way
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: it was done was there was also a sergeant had
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: to be following that patrol, so it took quite a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: bit of time. Now, by the very term mental health crisis,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: which is what these people are going through is mental health,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: so they have a health issue. They're not criminals. Now.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: In the early days when I joined the police, the
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: only way to get them help and support was to
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: arrest them and they put them in a police cell. Now,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: somebody who's going through a mental health crisis, the last
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: thing they needed to be put into a police cells.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Not a great place for them.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Police launch phase one of a reduction program on November
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the fourth of Mental Health Foundation. I'm not happy about it.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I want to ask the question, are police already scaling
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: back these operations because I heard the Minister Matt Doocy
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: on Ryan Bridges show last night and he seemed a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: little unsure of that.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: As far as I know, Well, where ever possible, they
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: will be scaling back. And it's what they've done anyway,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: They've always trehashed it, so they will only go to
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: people who at a real, genuine crisis where they might
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: have been causing violence. But again, you know, I do
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: know of one particular occasion where a taser had to
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: be used on somebody. Now, I mean that's just in humane,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: isn't it. You can't negotiate with these people. You can't
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: because they're going through a crisis state, and oftentimes when
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: you turn up in your police uniform that just makes
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: it worse.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So mental health crisis teams are already stretched for resources,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and now the police are wanting to pull back. If
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: not police, then who.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Services? That's their role is transporting patients, isn't it mental
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: health health patients?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: So what needs to have a mention of that? So
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: what needs to happen to enable the ambulance crews or
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the ambulance services to have enough resources to cope with
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the extra workload.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Well, they do have transport services already. Now. The reason
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: why I say this, and I hate to say it,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: because I know that DAR under the pump probably worse
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: than the police are to be frank and it's not
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: a fully funded service. That the ambulance service need to
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: be fully funded by government to do this work.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Lance. I thank you for your work, Lands author, former
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: police officer, mental health advocate. For more from early edition
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it be
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio