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Speaker 1: Now, the Mental Health Foundations launched a petition calling for

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Speaker 1: police to stop its plan to scale back attendance at

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Speaker 1: mental health callouts. Police, of course say they're spending too

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Speaker 1: much time escorting voluntary patients between hospitals and emergency departments

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Speaker 1: and they want to fight crime. Form a police officer

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Speaker 1: and mental health advocate, Lance Burdett has worken up early

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Speaker 1: for us. Good morning to your lads here. So how

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Speaker 1: much time on an eight hour shift for an average

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Speaker 1: cop is spent on mental health callouts?

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Speaker 2: Well, it can be quite a bit of time. And

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Speaker 2: it's not just a matter of transporting them. The way

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Speaker 2: it was done was there was also a sergeant had

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Speaker 2: to be following that patrol, so it took quite a

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Speaker 2: bit of time. Now, by the very term mental health crisis,

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Speaker 2: which is what these people are going through is mental health,

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Speaker 2: so they have a health issue. They're not criminals. Now.

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Speaker 2: In the early days when I joined the police, the

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Speaker 2: only way to get them help and support was to

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Speaker 2: arrest them and they put them in a police cell. Now,

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Speaker 2: somebody who's going through a mental health crisis, the last

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Speaker 2: thing they needed to be put into a police cells.

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Speaker 2: Not a great place for them.

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Speaker 1: Police launch phase one of a reduction program on November

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Speaker 1: the fourth of Mental Health Foundation. I'm not happy about it.

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Speaker 1: I want to ask the question, are police already scaling

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Speaker 1: back these operations because I heard the Minister Matt Doocy

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Speaker 1: on Ryan Bridges show last night and he seemed a

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Speaker 1: little unsure of that.

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Speaker 2: As far as I know, Well, where ever possible, they

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Speaker 2: will be scaling back. And it's what they've done anyway,

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Speaker 2: They've always trehashed it, so they will only go to

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Speaker 2: people who at a real, genuine crisis where they might

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Speaker 2: have been causing violence. But again, you know, I do

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Speaker 2: know of one particular occasion where a taser had to

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Speaker 2: be used on somebody. Now, I mean that's just in humane,

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Speaker 2: isn't it. You can't negotiate with these people. You can't

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Speaker 2: because they're going through a crisis state, and oftentimes when

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Speaker 2: you turn up in your police uniform that just makes

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Speaker 2: it worse.

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Speaker 1: So mental health crisis teams are already stretched for resources,

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Speaker 1: and now the police are wanting to pull back. If

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Speaker 1: not police, then who.

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Speaker 2: Services? That's their role is transporting patients, isn't it mental

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Speaker 2: health health patients?

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Speaker 1: So what needs to have a mention of that? So

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Speaker 1: what needs to happen to enable the ambulance crews or

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Speaker 1: the ambulance services to have enough resources to cope with

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Speaker 1: the extra workload.

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Speaker 2: Well, they do have transport services already. Now. The reason

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Speaker 2: why I say this, and I hate to say it,

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Speaker 2: because I know that DAR under the pump probably worse

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Speaker 2: than the police are to be frank and it's not

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Speaker 2: a fully funded service. That the ambulance service need to

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Speaker 2: be fully funded by government to do this work.

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Speaker 1: Lance. I thank you for your work, Lands author, former

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Speaker 1: police officer, mental health advocate. For more from early edition

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Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it be

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Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio