Narcisse questions missed mental health appointments and non-production
Chair Brooks-Powers resumes the hearing and yields to Council Member Mercedes Narcisse. Narcisse asks how many mental health appointments were missed due to DOC non-production. Boyd says about 10% of over 60,000 mental health appointments this year were missed for reasons including no escort, alarms, or lockdowns.
All right, we'll now continue the hearing.
I am going to yield my questions for the moment and move to member questions, starting with Councilmember Narcisse.
Thank you.
I have to start by saying thank you, Madam Chair, for always being present and on point.
We have, I mean,
question about how mental health is affecting people that's not even in incarceration.
So having like kids, and I'm so happy that you're on board with us, with the children, because we have to be mindful of the folks that's not present in the background.
So thank you for all your leadership.
We hear that routine medical appointment, right, often missed.
Is the same thing happening with mental health appointments?
How many were missed in the last fiscal year because DOC did not produce the patients and what share of all the scheduled mental health appointments?
Is that.
Specific to mental health appointments.
Uh-huh.
So I have for a calendar year to date, so the first eight months of this year, there was over 60,000 mental health appointments.
About 10% of those appointments were due to non-production that could have been related to either no escort or an alarm, a TSO, or lockdown.
And so that's a really small percentage when you compare it to the total amount of scheduled appointments.
And so, again, we do prioritize medical appointments in the jails.
That is a daily, ongoing conversation every day, 24-7, right?
And so if someone missed their medical appointment in the morning, DOC staff in that particular facility is going to be working with CHS staff to see if they can produce them the same day.
And so there's always ongoing conversation to make sure we're giving people access to the care that they need, and that's an ongoing partnership we have with CHS.
And so there are things we're going to internally do, you know, to figure out how we can make this process more efficient, but we're moving in the right direction when we strive to make sure people are produced to their clinic appointment.
In all honesty, I can say it's progress because it's only 10%, but the 10% still matter.
So, and I'm happy to hear that you're going to make every effort because every appointment, especially when it comes to mental health.