Sarnia gets 'mobile crisis intervention teams' for mental health calls

Police in the Sarnia area will now have a nurse to help them when answering mental health calls.

A new "mobile crisis intervention team" for both Sarnia Police and OPP was announced Friday at Bluewater Health during a visit from provincial Health Minister Christine Elliott, solicitor general Sylvia Jones and Michael Tibollo, associate minister of mental health and addiction.

Paula Reaume-Zimmer, integrated vice president of mental health and addictions at Bluewater Health and the Lambton-Kent branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, said the mobile crisis intervention teams will be called when police identify an individual with mental health or addiction issues.

"The officers on the scene can hand over to this team," she explained. "A mental health assessment can take place by a nurse ... They will also have access to our department of psychiatry. So if [the individual in need] is active with a psychiatrist they could maybe connect ... and have some direction from them."

Reaume-Zimmer says the new team will reduce the number of mental health patients that end up in the emergency department by default.

The team is one of the results of a new "police-hospital transition framework" announced by the province that encourages individual hospitals and police services to agree on standard protocols when addressing mental health calls.