Last summer, Los Angeles County rolled out the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline, which was meant to serve as an alternative to 911 for mental health crises. Now, an LA Times investigation shows the hotline is falling short of its promises. LA Times mental health reporter Lila Seidman joined Lisa McRee on “LA Times Today” with more.
“988 is supposed to be basically the 911 for mental health emergencies. Instead of calling 911 and saying, ‘My loved one appears to be having a psychotic break,’ you’re supposed to be able to call this hotline and first be connected to counselors who can talk to you or give you advice for your loved one and ideally de-escalate over the phone or figure out the best way to solve it,” Seidman said.
Though it’s a national hotline, each county is responsible for carrying out its own 988 responses. LA County opted to deploy civilian teams to help with 988 calls. Occasionally, they need to call in reinforcements, someone who’s a professional, and their last resort is to call law enforcement. Seidman talked about the program’s shortcomings.
“The problem right now is that the response is very slow for the civilian teams. I analyzed four years of data and found extremely long wait times for these teams that don’t involve law enforcement. And if you’re in an emergency, you can imagine that’s a problem because you’re expecting a 911 type response in minutes, maybe up to an hour. But in more than 90% of cases, they were taking more than one hour last year to show up,” she said.
Administrators have responded to complaints about the program’s efficacy.
“They say they have not been able to hire people because people are not used to that. They don’t want to go into the field anymore. They’re used to staying at home. A lot of people transitioned to telehealth during the pandemic, and there’s a mental health clinician shortage,” Seidman said.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has committed more than $150 million to expand alternative crisis response services. Seidman said the county mental health department's plan is to double the number of teams they have by the end of the year.
Watch the full interview above.
Watch “LA Times Today” at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.
CORRECTION: The story has been updated to reflect that the LA County Board of Supervisors committed more than $150 million to expand alternative crisis response services, and the county mental health department's plan is to double the number of teams they have by the end of the year. (May 22, 2023)