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Getting assistance in a Crisis |
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Contacting the right help in a psychiatric emergency is critical.
The Mental Health Commission says that it is important to be clear about who to contact and what to expect from clinicians in psychiatric emergencies. The Commission has launched its new web-site this week which features an easy to find set of numbers to ring when the public need urgent help, www.mhc.govt.nz.
"People can look in the front of their phone-books for numbers but if you have a computer the Commission's web-site is simple to find, you just go to the web-site and click on urgent help and then click on the area where you live on the map," said Dr Mc George, Mental Health Commission Chair.
The public may not appreciate that psychiatric clinicians do not have the authority to restrain people in the community and would be placing themselves at risk if they were to attempt to do so.
"It is important to realise however that in cases of life-threatening emergency to ring 111as it is not possible for Psychiatric Emergency Teams to intervene in situations where the threat of violence is immediately immanent," he said.
The role of community based psychiatric emergency teams is to provide assessment in the community whether this be in a persons home, in some cases their work or again where they may have been detained such as Police Stations.
"In most cases crises can be averted but where hospitalisation is required this can be arranged. The critical point is that this is best done early in a crisis rather than when there is the possibility of immediate harm to someone," said Dr Mc George.
"This is why the Commission's web-site is so important because it gives people simple information about who to ring where-ever you are and there's other information on the web-site about mental health and addictions services that people can search if they're interested," he said.
Credit:Media Release
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