To:

Phil Serna - District 1, Sacramento County Board of Supervisor
Jimmie R. Yee - District 2, Sacramento County Board of Supervisor
Susan Peters - District 3, Sacramento County Board of Supervisor
Roberta MacGlashan - District 4, Sacramento County Board of Supervisor
Don Nottoli - District 5, Sacramento County Board of Supervisor

 

Growing wait times in local emergency rooms for patients experiencing mental health crises greatly exacerbates the crisis that brought them to the emergency department in the first place. The benefits of mandatory use of emergency room as the only entry point for inpatient psychiatric care are far outweighed by the negative impacts.

 

This policy has not only led to increased wait times in ER for people seeking psychiatric services, but also to their unjustified detention, involuntary treatment, and painful degrading and humiliating experiences at the hands of uniformed security guards.

 

Many individuals who have a history of sexual abuse and trauma are being forced to remove their clothing by ER armed security guards. When these individuals refuse to remove their clothing, they are immediately strapped down by security guards, given injections, and later awakened somewhere in lovely hospital gowns.
 

 

Thank for helping to ask Sacramento County Board of Supervisors to review its decision of closing the County Mental Health Crisis Stabilization Unit because of clear unacceptable negative impact on those seeking psychiatric care