Inweekly has heard that HCA West Florida Hospital has given the state a two-week notice that it will no longer take in Baker Act patients. Sheriff Chip Simmons confirmed the news on WCOA’s “Real News with Rick Outzen” this morning.
The sheriff estimated that West Florida Hospital handled 1,400 of the county’s 3,100 Baker Act cases last year. The sudden change will impact law enforcement, EMS and county welfare. He and Baptist Hospital, which handles about 1,700 annually, are scrambling to find a solution.
“It’s going to impact law enforcement tremendously,” said Sheriff Simmons.”Let me just give you an example of what takes place. We get a call about someone acting erratic, someone going through a crisis. We get there, and they haven’t really committed a crime, or they’ve committed a crime, but it was due to their mental health conditions. And so no one wants to put these people in jail.”
He continued, “So the only thing that we can do to protect them and the people around them is to what’s called a Baker Act. Sometimes they go with us, and sometimes they will not. But we feel like we have to do that. We have to take them somewhere. We can’t take them to the jail in this scenario, so we have to take them to what’s called the nearest receiving facility. In the past, it has been Baptist or West Florida.”
The sheriff said once Baptist fills its beds, the nearest option would be Fort Walton. He said, “That’s not practical for our deputies to take them there. So now, either there’s not going to be any room, or we have to wait for a tremendous amount of time. What are we going to do with these people?”
West Florida Hospital’s decision is another blow to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office that has worked to improve how it interacts with mental health issues.
“When we’re starting to think that we have some solutions, we get knocked back with this– only half of the Baker Act beds are going to be available,” said Sheriff Simmons. “And now we have one more thing thrown at us.”
State Rep. Alex Andrade has been working on the issue. He will be a guest on my radio show tomorrow at 7:50 a.m.
