A crisis residence aimed at supporting people who have undergone more rigorous forms of treatment, such as the Sempervirens visit, is set to begin accepting patients in Eureka by August this year. (Contributed)
A crisis residential facility aimed at supporting people who have undergone more intensive forms of treatment, such as visiting Sempervirens, is set to begin accepting patients in Eureka by August this year.
Run by Willow Glen, a nonprofit that has several similar facilities across Northern California, the 10-bed facility is entirely voluntary for patients and aims to reduce the backlog of Semperviren patients waiting for discharge plans that won’t immediately lead to them being taken off treatment and becoming homeless.
“It’s one thing to go to Sempervirens and then be discharged, but if something happens and they go back to Sempervirens, they quickly become unstable and that’s sometimes part of the problem, so we’re hopeful that this will help alleviate some of those serial admissions,” said Jack Breazeale, deputy director of mental health for the Humboldt County Health and Human Services Department.
DHHS is responsible for referring patients to the facility, and despite the financial guillotine hanging around the county’s neck — a current $12.4 million deficit and a general fund with rapidly depleting reserves that could lead to cuts in services and staff being considered — Breazeale said funding for the facility is safe.
The county has a two-year contract with Willow Glen to operate the facility, paying it $2.1 million a year, much of which will likely be reimbursed by the state because many of the patients are on Medicare-Cal. California’s $27.6 billion budget deficit has caused problems for other aspects of the Department of Health’s funding, but federal reimbursements to the state for Medicare-Cal have kept this funding stable, Breazeale said.
For uninsured patients, Breazeale said part of the facility’s work involves enrolling them in Medi-Cal. Patients with private insurance will pay a copay based on their insurance.
Staff consists primarily of crisis counselors, with nursing supervisors and community resource specialists to assist patients with their medical needs and exit planning. The average stay in such facilities is two weeks, but patients may stay for up to a month.
“The crisis residential unit that we’re opening will allow us to take people from the CSU (crisis stabilization unit) who otherwise would have ended up in jail or the emergency room, and we’ll work with them for probably a month on crisis stabilization, medication management, three meals a day, a comfortable place to sleep, and then during that month that we work with them we’ll work on the next level of care and what happens after they’re discharged,” said David Gilbert, Willow Glen’s director of operations.
Gilbert said some former patients will move into residential care after being released from the ward, while others may require other forms of care, noting that each individual will be assessed individually, which could include one of Sempervirens’ 16 beds, although typically one person occupies all of those beds.
“This will really help ease the backlog and congestion at Sempervirens Hospital and at our local emergency rooms for people who need services and assistance, get them seen quickly and then continue to stabilise them over time,” Breazeale said.
Jackson Guilfoyle can be contacted at 707-441-0506.
