Mental health clinicians can save lives

A new initiative by ACT police focuses on collaborating with mental health clinicians, in order to help people with mental health emergency to deal with this issue. Thanks to this initiative, the research reports a 40% decreased rate of mental health patients that would need to enter Canberra`s juice system. “The clinicians can provide advice to the attending officers to reduce the level of attendance or the stigma of the attendance”, said David Pryce, Deputy Chief Police Officer. “They might provide advice on the approach that police take, they might even speak directly with the person if that`s able to be done”. It is considered that the new scheme provides better protection to people who are mentally ill. Dr. Peter Norrie, ACT chief psychiatrist considers that it is a life-saving opportunity. Unfortunately, this issue in some situations caused death because some people were unable to survive from mental health emergency. This is the first initiative in Australia between police and ACT Health.