LAKELAND, Fla. — A Polk County organization that serves people experiencing homelessness is being inundated with mental health patients, but the shelter is not equipped to care for them.
In body camera video from Jan. 10, you can hear a wheelchair-bound man tell a Lakeland police officer that he did not ask to be taken to Talbot House Ministries.
"Did you want them to displace you from where you were?" The officer asks the man.
"No, I did not," the man responds.
The man was discharged from a mental health facility in Wesley Chapel.
“A nurse came out and helped him out of the wheelchair. Helped him put his wheelchair in the back. Helped me get him in the car,” said an Uber driver.
The Uber driver told the officer the healthcare facility paid for an Uber to drop the patient off at the homeless shelter in Lakeland.
“Seven drop-offs in one week. That’s crazy,” said Deborah Cozzetti, Talbot House Ministries director of programs.
Cozzetti told ABC Action News that Talbot House is seeing a significant increase in hospitals bringing mental health patients to the shelter without the patient's or the shelter's consent.
“The ones that come in wheelchairs, the ones that are still in hospital gowns and hospital slippers. They’re a little disoriented. They don't know even where they are at or where they are going,” Cozzetti said.
This so-called “patient-dumping” was happening at the shelter while the ABC Action News crew was there.
“To drop somebody off that has emotional, medical issues and they’re not on their medication, we’re not equipped to handle that. We have no psychiatrist here. We have no pharmacy here. We can't fill their meds. We’re not a medical mental health facility,” said Cozzetti.
Cozzetti said patients are coming from hospitals throughout the state. The shelter is already 140% over capacity.
“There needs to be more coordination or services for people to go to when they have literally nowhere else to go,” said Angelina Ligon, case management supervisor at Talbot House Ministries.
Without enough beds or the ability to care for patients, Talbot House ends up sending them back to the hospital. Cozzetti believes state and local leaders must come up with a solution to stop this revolving door.
“When they are released from these different behavioral centers to actually have a place to send them, that they know is going to continue the care that they need,” Cozzetti said.
