Union County Judge Mike Loftin said he is actively working to establish a crisis stabilization unit in El Dorado, and the biggest challenge currently isn't funding, but finding qualified medical providers to staff the potential facility.
"We've got to get a plan together," Loftin said. "There's several ways we can go with it; we've got to get the powers that be together to see what our next steps are."
Last July, county Sheriff Ricky Roberts first broached the topic of establishing a CSU in El Dorado, pitching it to the Union County Quorum Court as a potential use for the Warner Brown hospital building, which Justices of the Peace had just agreed to purchase to use as a centralized 911 dispatch facility.
"There's four crisis stabilization units north of Little Rock and they've had tremendous success. It's a 16-bed facility where it's a short-term (place)... to get these people back on their meds and get them restored," Roberts said then.
Construction on the 911 center is due to start any day now, but the crisis stabilization unit has stalled, and hasn't come back up during a Quorum Court meeting since Roberts's initial proposal. However, county officials have been working with the state to secure needed funding for the unit.
Loftin said former Gov. Asa Hutchinson set money for a CSU in South Arkansas aside before he left office in January. Loftin wasn't sure exactly how much money had been put aside for it, and multiple attempts to reach Rep. Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, were unsuccessful.
With at least some of the funding that would be necessary for the CSU secured, officials are now looking to find a qualified provider to run the facility. State code requires that CSUs have 24/7 access to a licensed medical provider.
"There's a possibility we could work with the mental health folks here in town, possibly at the hospital," said Loftin. "We are working to try to get some game plan, if you will, and see who first beside into this picture for the CSU, whether it be NewHaven mental health (clinic) or maybe the hospital, or if it needs to be a whole separate unit."
Sheriff Ricky Roberts said that while the progress on the CSU is exciting, a lot more remains to be done to actually establish such a unit locally.
"We're trying to get a medical provider. I think there is some talks in the works about somebody that will oversee that – and that's about where we stand on that now," Roberts said.
Once a provider has been secured, the county can move forward with the project, he said.
"The way I understand it is, that would be the next step, getting a provider, then we'd go to the next step – we've got a location – and then the state has allowed us some start-up money and we'd go from there, see where we go and what it's going to take to get operational," he said.
Crisis stabilization units are used in Arkansas as alternatives for jail for individuals who encounter police officers but need mental health care instead of charges.
"I think South Arkansas needs one, I really do," Roberts said.
An email sent to a NewHaven staff member hadn't been answered by press-time.