This and That....
Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Here's the low down on the happenings near and around my life this past week:
1. Outside my work, a maroon Mitzu truck driven by some doped-up guy (looked a little Harry Reams'ish) blasted through a red light, smashed into a silver Mustang GT, which spun like a top a couple times BTW, and pin balled into the side-walked packed with pedestrians. It jumped the curb, ran over a Latino ice-cream vendor (and his little ice-cream wagon), ran over an elderly couple, and finally slamming into the side of a B of A. The poor elderly man was pinned underneath the truck and was clearly dead, by witness accounts. The woman and ice-cream vendor was sent to the hospital...while the driver of the truck sat slumped over in the back of a police car. The crowd that had develped clearly wanted to unleash some street justice, vigalante style on his sorry ass.
2. As usual, our local hosital's Psych Emergency Services are on red alert, meaning that they can no longer accept any new 5150's. This occurs more times than not now-a-dayz. The brain trust at DPH are trying to tease out why this is happening. Earlier in the week I sat in on a massive "State of the City" address where it was mentioned that despite our best efforts in keeping new homeless folks from coming into the City, we see a yearly increase of 1200 new mentally ill transients. Dispite this increase, we haven't seen a concomittant expansion in services, outpatient slots, inpatient beds, etc. etc. yada yada yada...you know the old story. So what do we do. Apparently the city has a wide-spectrum, multi-departmental approach to tackling this problem. Our Office, given it's front-line position, has been directed to become a safetly valve of sorts. Here's the logic. One way you can create more "room" in the system is to move clients more swiftly within the system. Great strategy from a numbers standpoint, but what about the individual? I cannot tell you the number of truly tragic and utterly horrific stories I hear from folks already struggling with mental illness. And when you complicate these situations with substance use/abuse, medical complications, un-documented and/or mono-lingual issues, children, legal issues, sexual identity issues, etc., you can see we need longer term treatment, or at least an expansion rather than the opposite. Soo what happens is folks exit the system unprepared and ultimately recycle right back into emergency services...ie. higher rates of recidivism.
3. Went to the Perfect Line's going away party on the Island and had an awesome time. The DJ was spinning endless Trance/Electronika beats and the bar supplied an never-ending stream of mixed libations. Good times, good times. ALOT of girls BTW, but I behaved myself quite well I must say.
4. Readying for our trip to Spain, finalizing the details, will be contacting the hotels to confirm and crossing our fingers re. the weather.
Well, I gotta run....will blog again soon.
1. Outside my work, a maroon Mitzu truck driven by some doped-up guy (looked a little Harry Reams'ish) blasted through a red light, smashed into a silver Mustang GT, which spun like a top a couple times BTW, and pin balled into the side-walked packed with pedestrians. It jumped the curb, ran over a Latino ice-cream vendor (and his little ice-cream wagon), ran over an elderly couple, and finally slamming into the side of a B of A. The poor elderly man was pinned underneath the truck and was clearly dead, by witness accounts. The woman and ice-cream vendor was sent to the hospital...while the driver of the truck sat slumped over in the back of a police car. The crowd that had develped clearly wanted to unleash some street justice, vigalante style on his sorry ass.
2. As usual, our local hosital's Psych Emergency Services are on red alert, meaning that they can no longer accept any new 5150's. This occurs more times than not now-a-dayz. The brain trust at DPH are trying to tease out why this is happening. Earlier in the week I sat in on a massive "State of the City" address where it was mentioned that despite our best efforts in keeping new homeless folks from coming into the City, we see a yearly increase of 1200 new mentally ill transients. Dispite this increase, we haven't seen a concomittant expansion in services, outpatient slots, inpatient beds, etc. etc. yada yada yada...you know the old story. So what do we do. Apparently the city has a wide-spectrum, multi-departmental approach to tackling this problem. Our Office, given it's front-line position, has been directed to become a safetly valve of sorts. Here's the logic. One way you can create more "room" in the system is to move clients more swiftly within the system. Great strategy from a numbers standpoint, but what about the individual? I cannot tell you the number of truly tragic and utterly horrific stories I hear from folks already struggling with mental illness. And when you complicate these situations with substance use/abuse, medical complications, un-documented and/or mono-lingual issues, children, legal issues, sexual identity issues, etc., you can see we need longer term treatment, or at least an expansion rather than the opposite. Soo what happens is folks exit the system unprepared and ultimately recycle right back into emergency services...ie. higher rates of recidivism.
3. Went to the Perfect Line's going away party on the Island and had an awesome time. The DJ was spinning endless Trance/Electronika beats and the bar supplied an never-ending stream of mixed libations. Good times, good times. ALOT of girls BTW, but I behaved myself quite well I must say.
4. Readying for our trip to Spain, finalizing the details, will be contacting the hotels to confirm and crossing our fingers re. the weather.
Well, I gotta run....will blog again soon.
posted by supergoober at
10:11 AM
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