Helping People In Crisis

Wildfire season is here in California, in the midst of a pandemic. Yesterday, Governor Gavin Newsom said the state is working on fire safety and evacuation plans that also keep in mind the ongoing and deadly threat from coronavirus. The number of wildfires already this year is over 30% more than the five year average, Newsom said. The hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting dryer. The wets are getting wetter… one thing we know our approach to dealing with wildfires has to change and adapt. The governor says the state will create socially distanced fire evacuation options, conduct frequent temperature checks, look for more emergency responder personnel and monitor how utilities are handling wildfire safety protocols. *** San Diego police fatally shot a man Thursday afternoon who allegedly pointed a gun at them during a confrontation near Hoover High School. Officers responding to a report of a person walking around with a firearm shortly before 4 p.m. spotted the armed suspect in the 4300 block of Menlo Avenue, just north of El Cajon Boulevard in Talmadge. When the patrol personnel tried to make contact with the man, he raised the gun toward them, according to police. Several officers responded by opening fire. The suspect, who was not immediately identified, died at the scene. An investigation into the incident was underway last night in Talmadge, with streets closed by police to allow investigators to gather evidence. *** San Diego County public health officials reported 560 new COVID-19 cases and nine deaths Thursday, raising the county's totals to 18,402 cases and 415 deaths. The numbers are lower than earlier in the week, but other signs show the pandemic is far from easing. A new daily high of 38 COVID- 19 positive patients were hospitalized in Wednesday's data. *** From KPBS, I’m Kinsee Morlan and you’re listening to San Diego News Matters, a podcast powered by our reporters, producers and editors. It’s Friday, July 10. Stay with me for more of the local news you need. This November, San Diegans could be voting on a ballot measure that would approve 900-million dollars in spending on affordable housing. Advocates say the need has never been greater. KPBS reporter Max Rivlin-Nadler has the story. The ballot measure would approve a bond that would build roughly 7500 new affordable housing units. 2800 of those units would be for the formerly homeless, while the rest would be for veterans and senior citizens. City Councilmember Chris Ward has been spearheading the effort in City Council to get the bond on November's ballot. He said the pandemic has exposed the urgent need for the bond, despite the recent economic downturn. WARD: At a time when physical distancing and staying at home is required, to ensure public health, hundreds of San Diegans experiencing homelesness remain unsheltered, due to the high cost of living, stemming from our ongoing housing deficit. The average homeowner in San Diego would pay $115 per year to fund the bond. City Council is set to vote on whether to include the measure on November's ballot, this Tuesday. *** The USS Roosevelt arrived in San Diego Thursday. KPBS Military Reporter Steve Walsh says the carrier waged the Navy's most high profile battle with COVID-19. In March an outbreak of COVID-19 sidelined the Roosevelt in Guam. More than 1,500 of the nearly 6,000 crew members would test positive. Capt. Carlos Sardiello says the remaining crew is symptom-free. 10;43 "As far as lessons learned I would offer that what is being done in society with the masks, the social distancing and the cleaning, those measures absolutely work." Sardiello replaced Capt. Brett Crozier, who was fired by Acting Secretary of The Navy, after a letter Croizier wrote -- critical of the Navy's response -- was leaked to the media. Sailor Daniel Wright praised his former captain. 17;47 "I am grateful for everything he did for the crew and the ship." In an unusual homecoming, families waited in cars, off the dock to maintain social distance. *** Single-use plastic bags reappeared in California at the end of April because of the COVID 19 pandemic. An executive order allowing the bags has since expired, but the bags are lingering in San Diego. KPBS Environment Reporter Erik Anderson says that has some focusing on reusable shopping bags again. 00:00:41 – 00:00:50 “The resurgence of the thin single-use truly single-use plastic bags is astonishing.” Alex Ferron works for The San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. She says single-use plastic bags were only legal for about two months in California, but they are littered all over the county. 00:03:54 – 00:04:01 “There’s been a huge notable change in the kind of trash we’re finding. Plastic bags are now everywhere.” The lightweight bags were banned in California by voters in November 2016. That happened after more than 100 municipalities had enacted bans on their own. Ferron says Gavin Newsom’s executive order in late April gave the bags a second life. 00:02:04 – 00:02:28 “The reason the executive order was placed was not because of scientific proof that reusables were dangerous. They came from front line workers who, knee jerk, were uncomfortable. Understandably so. I don’t want to touch anything either, but they asked their grocery store chains to, hey, can you do something about this. Can you make it so we don’t have to touch people’s items.” Ferron says the bags are notorious for spilling out of trashcans, trash trucks and landfills and becoming part of the region’s litter stream. And they’re easy to find along roads even though only some stores used them. 00:08:03 – 00:08:12 “The single use plastic grocery bag is a prime example of unnecessary use of plastic.” Mark Murray is in charge of Californians Against Waste. The group convinced voters to ban the bags in 2016. The state was using 500 million bags a month before the initiative passed and environmentalists worried about the ecological damage. 00:08:12 – 00:08:24 “this is a product who’s useful life last literally maybe ten to 20 minutes, the amount of time it takes you to get your groceries from the check stand to your home.” Murray thinks the governor might’ve acted too fast with an executive order in April that essentially stopped the use of reusable bags. He understands that uncertainty about COVID 19 drove that decision. However, Murray says allowing the bags to return, opened the door for a plastic industry anxious to reclaim the California market. 00:06:27 – 00:06:52 “I have literally seen the propaganda from the plastic bag industry throughout the country where they have tried to take advantage of this situation.” Murray says COVID 19 was a talking point as industry groups tried to demonize reusable bags as unsafe. KPBS reached out to the plastic’s industry association and plastic bag trade group but they did not return calls seeking comment. Meanwhile, Greenpeace U-S recently released a petition from more than 120 doctors urging people to resume using reusable bags. 00:04:17 – 00:04:24 “reusables can be used safely, provided sanitation practices are in order.” Ivy Schlagle is a Greenpeace researcher based in California. 00:07:49 – 00:08:04 “As health experts both understand more and are able to clarify for public health departments, decision makers and stores, that we will sort of a return back to what really is the new normal and that’s turning against excessive plastic.” She says California public health officials have safety guidelines for the use of customer bags in stores. The state urges shoppers to ask if they can bag their own groceries. If not, they should take the cart to their car and bag the groceries there. 00:03:38 – 00:03:58 “Similar to the same way we might wear a face covering, we should be wearing a face covering to protect others. We should just handle our own bags. We should just bag our own groceries into reusable bags. Because there’s nothing uniquely threatening about the reusable bags if we do those things.” Stand-up: file from ois (27) 00:17 -- 00:43 San Diego County officials are asking storeowners to follow state guidelines on reusable bags, but they say stores can add additional restrictions if they feel they need tighter limitations on bags customers bring to the store. The California Grocers Association is also following the guidance of state public health officials. And that was KPBS environment reporter Erik Anderson. *** San Diego county is seeing a new way to handle mental health crises. Plus...a roque red curb painter in La Jolla. Those stories after the break. In one La Jolla neighborhood, someone is trying to limit access to the beach by limiting places to park. KPBS reporter John Carroll says it's all about the color of a curb. ______________________________________________________________________ Camino De Collado is a block-long street off of La Jolla Shores Drive with stunning views of the Pacific. There are nearby access points to the beach below, making it a popular place to park for surfers and beachgoers. But someone has tried to eliminate half of the parking spaces on this street by painting the entire curb on the north side… red. Kristin Brinner is a surfer who volunteers with the Surfrider Foundation. She works on the issue of beach access. "It's really a pretty hateful act that says something to the effect that elite coastal homeowners have more of a right to access the beaches than the general public." Brinner says the Surfrider Foundation has notified both the city and the Coastal Commission. If the rogue red painter ever gets caught, they could face jail time… and fines that will be much more costly than a bucket of red paint. *** San Diego County is seeking to make a sea change in how it handles people facing mental health crises. Mental health issues are putting a strain on healthcare providers and on the criminal justice system. And those experiencing mental health challenges are often left without the help they need. Palomar Health, one of North county's largest healthcare providers, has just opened the first crisis stabilization unit in San Diego County. It's part of a strategy to take the pressure off emergency rooms and hopefully be a more effective way of helping people in crisis. KPBS Midday Edition’s Alison St. John talked to Diane Hanson, CEO of Palomar health, about who the program is designed for, what the program offers and more. So now what kind of patients is this crisis stabilization unit designed to help and what makes it different from previous treatment options? I think what's great about this facility is that they will treat those individuals who don't necessarily need to be in an inpatient setting. They just need a place, a healing environment that's calm and, um, less restricted that can allow them to get back to their normal sense of self. So it's a, it's an outpatient facility that will allow them to restabilize and, um, and return to their life in a much faster fashion. How has your emergency room at Palomar been effected by the growing number of people coming in with mental health crises, especially since tri city closed their crisis stabilization unit a couple of years ago. We've seen a significant increase in, uh, the behavioral health and mental health population within our emergency rooms at both of our locations and this treatment, what we found has really helped not only get people in the right level of care and the right place and environment, but, um, it does also free up space within our emergency rooms. Because again, we're putting them in the right setting. To get the most important treatment for them specifically, without them being intermingled with other patients in the emergency room that might have a medical acute need. These individuals need to be in a much less restrictive environment. You know, with more sensory integration and to have folks that are there to treat them with the right skill set in the right way. And so I figured that psychiatric services had to grow the demand for them. Went up almost 40% recently. Is that accurate? That is accurate, that is accurate. And I will tell you one thing that hasn't changed in this pandemic, you know, we all know we're in unprecedented times, but the one thing that hasn't changed for us while other volumes were decreasing, uh, our mental health and behavioral health patient population. Actually stayed the same or increased a little. And I do expect that we will see more mental health needs in the future associated with the pandemic. So for us to get this facility up and online right now is really timely. I think with the environment we're in. No, this is the, the, the first purpose built crisis stabilization unit in San Diego County. It was specially designed. Uh, I see pictures of it, make it, uh, look like a very large empty room with recliners rather than beds. Why, why is this a good design for the purpose? Well, I did mention early on that, you know, we're really looking for this patient population to be in a less restricted environment. Right with more sensory integration and, and quite honestly help to reduce the stigma around, you know, mental health needs. I think, you know, we've come a long way probably in the past five years around mental health and, and de-stigmatizing, you know, the, the needs, but I think there's so much more we can do. I think this environment helps to encourage that. The idea is that they wouldn't be in this unit for more than 24 hours. Right. So it's a fairly short term stay, but I noticed that there's no room dividers, no privacy. I mean, does that help when you're in an emotional crisis? Yes, actually it does. So we, the patients that come into this facility stay anywhere from three hours to 24 hours. The average is about 18. And we do have rooms within the facility where if individuals are having more of an acute crisis, they can go in and, and essentially isolate themselves. So we do have the capability within this environment who also provide kind of that next level of quiet and healing environment. But the idea is that we want them to be in a place that, um, that is open and gives them an ability to, to be in a, in a more normalized environment, unless they need that next level of, of care. If there is a need for an additional, you know, um, maybe an inpatient stay or a referral to an inpatient stay at another facility that will also occur. I think that the great thing about. This facility and the intent of this program is, you know, to, to connect and reconnect consumers, to community resources and, and families and other support services. We want to make sure that they're getting the followup care that they need. We want to make sure that they're staying connected to. You know, to their, the care that they need and whether it's, you know, there's medication needs or those kinds of things, whatever that follow up plan of care is, we want to make sure that we're, we're helping them continue to be connected to that. You know, I, I will say if. A patient does require after coming to stay in this facility or in this program, if they do require an inpatient stay, we also have an inpatient behavioral health programs. And if we can't offer that service to them, we will do our best to find that next level of care for them. And finally, how many people can you, uh, Treat there. And how many people do you think you need to be able to treat there? What sort of demand is there for this kind of treatment? So I will tell you right now, we do have a crisis stabilization unit located at the downtown campus. I will say we did as of last week, we moved everyone into the new facility, but we had eight recliners in that facility. And they were pretty full most, most often I will. And we now have 16 chairs within this new facility. So I believe we're going to find that the demand for this type of service is pretty significant. We've seen the importance of this within our community. We've seen the benefits to the patients. We've seen the benefits to, again, our emergency rooms, you know, personally with, um, you know, Freeing up, uh, you know, some, some additional capacity within the emergency room. We've also seen, you know, that there are less readmissions to the hospital that, um, a rapid crisis intervention, um, can reduce the severity of the crisis and then shorten the time to stabilization too. So I think there's a lot of benefits from a program like this, and we're just excited that, you know, We have the opportunity to offer this, not just to North County, but to anyone within the County that, um, that might need these services. And that was Dian Hanson, the CEO of Palomar Health, talking with KPBS Midday Edition’s Alison St. John. Hear more interviews like this one by subscribing to Midday Edition wherever you listen to podcasts. *** And a quick tip on how to stay connected to our community through COVID isolation… The San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books has gone virtual. The latest virtual event was a talk with comic-book authors and artists Sam Maggs and Eric Shanower, and it was moderated by Alonso Nunez, who runs the Little Fish Comic Book Studio on El Cajon Boulevard...it’s a good one and you can find it by searching for the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books on Facebook. That’s all for today. Thanks for listening.