Narcisse asks about discharge plans, medication, and community follow-up

What share of people live with the discharge plan, a medication supply, and a scheduled appointment in the community?

How are you tracking whether they're...

actually make that appointment.

We spoke back and forth about that before.

Are we doing the follow-up?

Yeah.

Yes, yeah.

So I guess to start, we provide core reentry services to every person in custody.

Crucially, that is ensuring that they have Medicaid access on their release.

So we're checking whether they came in with coverage.

If they did not, then we can help them apply.

We're also sending prescriptions to the pharmacy of their choice on their release.

We're connecting them or referring them to the various services Dr.

Otanachar referenced in his testimony.

We have the community reentry network.

We have the port primary care practices at Bellevue and Kings.

We have a port line that individuals can call.

And then patients who are enrolled in the mental health service can also leave Rikers with meds in hand.

I will say all of our services in the jails as well as any community referrals are all voluntary.

So we aren't necessarily tracking or ensuring, but we are trying to remove as many barriers as possible so that if someone wants to access that care in the community, they're able to.

The voluntary part bothers me because when a lot of folks end up in the community, and especially the black and brown communities, now more than ever, you see now young folks walking around with...

serious mental health problem, and there is no place to go and no community arrangement, I think we have to make maximum effort to make sure those populations that are coming from incarceration are being addressed.