System Fail! An Update

If you have been following the blogs about the person with the .6 BAC and lack of services for the person – I have more bad news. I only got 3.5 – 4 hours of sleep last night . . .

COUNTY HUMAN SERVICES FOLLOW UP
None. No response to questions to Lynn Green in the email. No social worker follow up with the person.

ATTEMPTS TO GET PRIVATE SERVICES
I called one inpatient rehab place multiple times, left several messages. No returned call. Could be the “Konkel” name got in the way, but still, no return call to me.

THE ALCOHOLIC
Checked themselves out of Detox against medical advice, went to orientation or intake for the outpatient treatment, went to one AA meeting once outside, then despite quite a bit of determination that was expressed, started drinking within about 48 hours, back to all their old habits. They feel like a failure. One friend says it is one of the worst places you can be, when you can’t imagine yourself with a drink, and can’t imagine yourself without one. Partner claims they still want to go to treatment, but the ride they arranged didn’t work out because they arranged it from a friends house but they were at a different location and couldn’t get there. Was that just an excuse? I don’t know. Will they go to treatment this morning. No. Same excuse, but no plans for anything to be different. And today, not much determination to be any different.

LAST NIGHT
Around 8:30 last night I was talking with the partner on the phone. The partner was not very responsive to my questions, depressed, confused. I asked the person if I could talk with the alcoholic partner, but they couldn’t get them on the phone. I couldn’t tell if they weren’t trying or if the person was passed out. Seemed they couldn’t wake them up. I couldn’t tell what was going on. The partner has been crying for the past three days every time I talk to them. This person suffers from depression and several other mostly untreated issues. This person has been telling me for three days that they are going to do something to hurt themselves. Based on the comments the person said to me, not being able to wake up the partner, not being able to get in touch with anyone at camp and the history of this person that I know and the items I knew this person has access to, I made the best judgement I could. I tried making sense of what was going on then called the ambulance and jumped in my car.

The ambulance passed me on the way up E. Washington. I caught up with them, told them what I thought was going on, and they made me wait by the side of the road. They dragged the partner out of the tent and to the ambulance. The persons seemed unconscious. I asked about the alcoholic still in the tent. They told me that the person refused services. I asked if the person was ok – they didn’t really answer. I talked to people at camp, told them to check on the person and call 911 if they have to. I answered all the questions about age, medical conditions, etc that I could for the EMTs then I walked back to my car to follow the ambulance to the hospital – which one – they couldn’t tell me. On the way back to my car, I talked to another police officer, asked again if the person in the tent was ok. They said that the person refused services. Awesome.

I followed the ambulance, but hit some red lights. So, I went to Meriter. Wrong hospital. Meriter called St. Mary’s and the person was there. I sat in the waiting room about 45 minutes and then went back to see my friend. My friend was only concerned that their partner was left alone in the tent. I explained that we had someone there who promised to check on the person every 15 minutes. The nurse suggested we just call 911 if the partner thought it was that serious, but then didn’t. The partner was crying so I called another person who was on their way back to camp. When they got back they checked on this person because the partner in the hospital was worried the alcoholic would again attempt suicide when they knew that the person in the hospital wasn’t there and had tried to harm themselves. Sadly, when my friend checked on the person in the tent, the alcoholic didn’t even remember that the ambulance, police and fire had been there and dragged their partner out of the tent. More crying.

We tried. Again. By 2am I was dropping the person that had tried to harm themselves back off at the camp with a list of phone numbers of services to call – that we have called before.

Contrary to what you might think of me, I do remain quite calm in these situations. Don’t know how or why. I have no training. Only twice I got a little snippy. One was when the psychiatric nurse was telling us about all the great services out there – I had to interrupt and tell him about the waiting lists and the hoops you have to jump through. I was annoyed with this person because when they were trying to ask where this person lived, and the partner replied they lived in a swamp, the nurse laughed, thinking it was a joke. We had to explain that 25ish people were living on Portage Rd in tents – he had no clue. They kinda apologized.

The other time I snapped was with the nice nurse, who asked me if I would bring the person back to where they were sleeping tonight, he asked “is that ok?”. I tersely but politely asked him if he would like to drop someone off in the middle of the night in crappy weather to go sleep in a tent after all they had been through and knowing what awaits them. The look on the nurse’s face was enough for me to know I had made my point. But it didn’t do any good.

NOW WHAT?
Many thanks to my wise friend who spent several hours in the ER with me last night . . . I know we’ve done all we can. I know this person in the tent has to help themselves. I know they are dragging their partner down with them, and the partner has to make different decisions.

However, I’m not going to be quiet, the system is broken and it seems no one is listening. Hand wringing, “tight budgets”, “doing the best we can”, “there’s a list of resources” that have waiting lists. I’m so sick of it. Where is the human being that is going to go talk to this person and see if they can create a plan of action with them? And then help fill all the stupid little gaps in the system so they have a chance of being successful. And encourage people to be successful instead of making them feel like its useless to try. It seems that the system is designed to have people fail and is quite content with it. Or too overwhelmed? Or no one is in charge to make decisions that make sense? Or incompetent? WTF? Some of the fixes could be so simple and easy – some would be hard. But I’d like to see someone try.