Florida West Hospital backs off Baker Act deadline as Pensacola rallies for solution

HCA Florida West Hospital will continue accepting Baker Act patients past a Nov. 15 deadline it initially declared as the cutoff date.

Florida West Hospital had set a 90-day deadline in August to stop receiving mental health patients who officials have deemed a danger to themselves under Florida's Baker Act.

Hospital spokesperson Kendrick Doidge told the News Journal on Friday those plans have been indefinitely delayed because of the progress made toward setting up a Central Receiving Facility.

"All of the community partners focused on mental health are coming together to really come up with a solution through Rep. Salzman's Mental Health Task Force," Doidge said. "It looks like there's some real positive movement going on to create this Central Receiving Facility for the community."

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State Rep. Michelle Salzman said in August that she was working with the local legislative delegation to secure funding for a central receiving facility for Baker Act patients.

Salzman, R-Pensacola, told the News Journal on Friday that the Department of Children and Families had committed to funding the creation of a central receiving facility and the Lakeview Center would staff and manage the facility.

Doidge said they are encouraged to see all of the community partners working together.

"As long as that continues to happen, we're going to delay that decision for adult patients," Doidge said.

Currently, Escambia County has just two receiving centers, Florida West Hospital, which sees about 70 Baker Act patients a week, and Baptist Hospital, which sees about 100 Baker Act patients a week.

Florida West Hospital's Nov. 15 deadline would have meant all Baker Act patients would either be received at Baptist Hospital or transported to distant facilities in Okaloosa or Bay counties.

Florida West Hospital is only licensed to treat adult mental health patients.

The hospital sent the notice in August that it would stop receiving Baker Act patients because it kept receiving adolescent patients who were left stuck waiting for hours to be transferred to Baptist Hospital, which can treat adolescent mental health patients. The delays were also tying up law enforcement or ambulance crews for hours until the patient could be seen by a mental health professional.

The Baker Act allows law enforcement officials, a court or doctors to involuntarily commit someone for a minimum of 72 hours for a mental health evaluation if they are a danger to themselves or others. Another law called the Marchman Act deals with substance abuse and allows a person to be involuntarily committed for up to five days to receive addiction treatment.

After Florida West Hospital sent the notice, local officials negotiated an agreement that ensured adolescent patients would only be taken to Baptist Hospital, and both Baptist and Florida West would take adult Baker Act patients with Florida West signing on for 90 days.

Salzman said once the central receiving facility is up and running, all Baker Act patients will be taken to the receiving facility where they can be quickly assessed by a mental health professional from the Lakeview Center, and then they can decide the best treatment option, whether it be something Lakeview can provide or one of the hospitals.

"We definitely need it. We want to move towards that," Salzman said. "It'll eliminate a lot of the issues and actually make more space available. Because with the receiving facility, everybody will be taken there. But not everybody needs a bed. So instead of putting everybody in beds to assess them, we'll assess them and then decide if we need a bed, and where's that bed at, and what kind of bed we need."

Salzman said the local hospitals and the County Commission will have to approve the agreement setting up the receiving facility before it can go into effect.

Shawn Salamida, president of the Lakeview Center, told the News Journal that it was good news to hear that Florida West Hospital had scrapped its Nov. 15 deadline for Baker Act patients.

Salamida said Lakeview Center is working on putting together the actual budget for the receiving facility, which requires hiring more staff and likely renovating one of Lakeview's buildings.

"We're hard at work exploring that now," Salamida said. "We have a pretty good feel for what the personnel need would be because we have operated something similar in the past."

Salamida said he estimates it will take between nine to 12 months to set up the receiving facility.

In the meantime, Salamida said that Lakeview will continue to use mobile response units to send mental health professionals out into the community and will look at working with the hospitals to embed personnel in their emergency rooms.

"As challenging as this situation is, it's one of those moments that has brought us together as a community," Salamida said. "We have a level of collaboration and communication that I haven't seen in this role until now, and I think that that we're going to get good results because of that."

Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola HCA Florida West Hospital to keep taking Baker Act patients