Sarnia's police chief says the service is hoping to expand its mental health response team.
MHEART, or Mental Health Engagement and Response Team, was introduced in 2019 and is made up of one plain-clothed police officer and two trained mental health nurses.
Chief Norm Hansen said the service continues to see a positive effect from the team.
"The wait times in hospital with anybody that's been apprehended have probably been more than cut in half," he said. "But I think that the real value in it is the number of people that are not apprehended now because we have a mental health professional with an officer and they're able to supply other means for people to get help, rather than apprehension."
The team aims to reduce wait times for residents requiring crisis care and provide a comprehensive response in an individual's home or in the community.
"It's greatly reducing the number of calls that the average street officer has to go on," said Hansen. "And it's improving the service to the people that we're dealing with -- they're getting better service on scene than simply being apprehended and hauled away to the hospital every time."
A police report said pre-MHEART wait times at Bluewater Health averaged three hours. In a sampling of recent calls from November 1 to January 31, wait times averaged one hour and 44 minutes.
"We'd like to be able to double [the team] if we could," said Hansen. "But we'd have to see if it's within budget and we're waiting to see if there might be possible grants from the government in the future."
The target wait time is currently one hour and 30 minutes, with the hope of getting it down to one hour in the future.
With files from Natalia Vega
