By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Horizons Mental Health Center CEO Mike Garrett gave a report Tuesday to the Board of Reno County Commissioners. He noted that COVID-19 has had a negative impact on their in-person business.
"I think there's probably a myriad of answers to the question," Garrett said. "One is, I think, everybody's just incredibly stressed and impacted by the pandemic, so I think tolerance, patience are stretched, both on our customer side as well as our staff side and so I think that impacts that a lot. I think people have been less willing to come to the center out of some concern and fear for their safety, although we do temperature checks on everybody that comes in to our building. They all have to wear masks. We have hand sanitizers. We hired a dedicated housekeeper that just sanitizes our waiting areas, those high traffic areas, several times a day, but I think that impacted that, as well."
Garrett also talked about a grant Horizons has received through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to work to become a certified community behavioral health clinic.
"That's a national standard that states have to authorize that's kind of sweeping the country," Garrett said. "Other than the last rounds of grantees, there were 137 awarded throughout the country and Horizons was able to get one of those. It's a pretty high standard. I've told our staff and I kind of show my age when I say this, if we're able to achieve that standard, it's like getting the Good Housekeeping seal of approval."
Horizons is also funded to establish an adult crisis stabilization unit.
"Commissioner Friesen has set in on the Stepping Up Council meetings already," Garrett said. "That typically comes up in there is how we're going to do that. This grant will allow us to create that and we should have that up and operational, probably within about five months, where we will try to divert people picked up by law enforcement, rather than taking them to jail or to the ED, but to a crisis stabilization unit that will work with them to try to stabilize them within 72 hours. If we're able to do that, we'll return them to the community."
If not, then mental health professionals from Horizons can make the call as to if they need an inpatient hospital bed.