Funding for three comprehensive behavioral health clinics runs out at the end of the month.
The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics are part of Oklahoma’s participation in a two-year federal program to expand access to mental health and addiction treatment services in order to lessen the strain on emergency rooms and jails taking in more and more people with those problems.
Congressman Markwayne Mullin has a clinic in his district.
"In one county that I have in my district, there was 1,115 individuals incarcerated before this program was put in place. Last year, there was 17," Mullin said.
Pryor Assistant Police Chief Jason Willyard said officers used to have to stay with someone experiencing a mental health emergency for hours at a hospital before driving them two hours to a facility. Now there’s a clinic 30 minutes away.
"This last two years has saved law enforcement, my department alone, thousands of dollars and thousands of man hours," Willyard said.
As part of the program, Pryor police are also carrying iPads that connect people to mental health professionals.
Oklahoma’s clinics also offer addiction treatment to help with the opioid epidemic.
"Mental health now has doctors [with] the ability to treat it if we don’t stigmatize it. If we take the individuals and we simply lock them up, we’re not treating it. We’re not helping the individual get better," Mullin said.
Mullin said Oklahoma could temporarily fund the clinics after March 31, but the state doesn't have the resources to fully absorb the costs of running them.
Mullin is teaming up with California Democrat Doris Matsui to get Excellence in Mental Health Act reauthorization through the U.S. House. Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow are shepherding it through the Senate.
