n DISCOURSE
juries secondary to a suicide attempt.
… (We) offer the emergency department
an opportunity to document the name
of the person, phone number, signature,
fax it through to our hotline, and then
we call that person every day for 30 days.
This program has been very, very suc-
cessful. We’ve had no (suicide deaths
among participants).
We’ve been supporting t he I Got
Your Back (campaign) through Patrick
Mulvaney … to support people in food
service. … We also monitor for clusters …
an experience of a suicide exposes people
to a new set of behaviors many people
never thought of as an option, and, un-
fortunately, that is part of this contagion,
so we try to inoculate people just like you
would with any vector. In a lot of ways, the
work we’re doing with Patrick Muvlaney
is about vectoring, providing a positive,
anti-suicide component in every shift, in
every food-service environment.
How does WellSpace serve the home-
less population?
We have a program we’ve been running
since 2005 called the Interim Care Pro-
gram. Someone who’s homeless and in a
hospital — if they’re sick — is less likely
to be discharged because the doctors in
the hospital are frightened of what will
happen if they’re back on the street.
Let’s say you’ve got a big cut. If you
live in a home, they’ll give you materi-
als to clean your injury and discharge
you. If you live on the street, they won’t
discharge you, so they might wait for
your cut to heal. On average, someone
who’s homeless stays in a hospital for
three weeks longer than someone who’s
not. In the meantime, how can we use
that time as an opportunity to engage
someone in care, get them benefits and
try to find them housing?
The Interim Care Program is an in-
tervention between the health system
and WellSpace to build a nurse-managed,
medical respite program. When people are
ready to go to a clean, safe place, they can
be discharged to that program. We built
suites of hospital beds inside (area) shel-
ters and we operate (the program) there.
We keep peoples’ wounds clean, we keep
them safe and out of the cold, we give them
medical respite, but we also engage them
in case management, care benefits, get
them into housing and get them to estab-
lish care for behavioral health. We use that
critical recuperative time to access ser-
vices rather than just linger in a hospital
bed. It’s a really cool program, and we’re
honored to be a part of this truly commu-
nitarian effort by a bunch of partners in
the region.
Ou r re a d e r s i n c l u d e C E Os a n d
executives; they’re not part of the low-
income or homeless population. Why
should they care about the work of
WellSpace?
SeaSon 24
2019
2020
Donald Kendrick, Conductor
Ryan Enright, Organist
Inspired repertoire
honoring the
Patron Saint
of Music
Stained GlaSS
MuSic for Saint cecilia
Messe Solennelle – charles Gounod
World Première – ScSO 2019 commission
A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day – dr. Scott Perkins
carrie Hennessey, Soprano
Michael desnoyers, tenor
Kevin doherty, Baritone
Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 8 pm
Fremont Presbyterian Church
5770 Carlson Drive, Sacramento
781.899.8441
916.927.7600
sacramento.itex.com
www.itex.com
tickets
32
916 536-9065
comstocksmag.com | October 2019
s ac r a m e n to c h o r a l . co m