Thanks to new measures introduced by the hospitals, police officers are waiting an average 60 minutes to hand off a patient, down from 71 minutes before the new program.

Nonetheless, this memo from VPD Inspector Ralph Pauw, prepared for council at the request of Councillor Kerry Jang, makes it clear that city taxpayers are still paying a high policing cost to fill gaps in the province’s patchwork mental health system. VPD pays police officers for hundreds of hours a year to stand waiting at the hospital for the hand-off.

Pauw advocates a simple change to regulations to allow qualified nurses, not just busy physicians, to determine that admission to hospital is required. Once that decision is made, police officers could go back to their real jobs — and much faster.

The latest summary, circulated last week by the BIA’s Charles Gauthier, shows that the benefits continue for downtown businesses, with incidents of street disorder trending down as shelters open.

Nineteen mentally ill individuals Vancouver police sought to refer to treatment at the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addictions simply had their files closed by provincial authorities, according to this week’s new Vancouver Police Department report on the issue.

These individuals went on to trigger “619 documented police contacts where they were suspects, or suspects chargeable, or charges recommended or charged with a criminal offence or listed as being involved in a mental health incident.”

Even more disturbing, according to the report, released Monday, “five of the 19 (26%), were victims in eight incidents including assault, assault with a weapon, uttering threats and robbery with a weapon.”

The report by Inspector Scott Thompson, entitled Policing Vancouver’s Mentally Ill: the Disturbing Truth, is a an indictment of Victoria’s claim that community-based care is providing sufficient support for the mentally ill. It’s yet another example of provincial cuts forcing a downloading of costs to city-funded services that are not equipped for the job.

In countless cases, mentally ill patients simply walk away from acute care hospitals, triggering costly police searches.

Some walked out of hospital and committed suicide. The VPD’s analysis of suicide incidents determined that:

Between February 1, 2009 and February 1, 2010 the VPD identified seven suicides committed by subjects who were previously dealt with by police for issues relating to MHA or “Disturbed Person” incidents. Further analysis indicated that these individuals also had a history of having been assessed psychiatrically in a hospital or having been committed at some point during the previous two-year period for mental health issues.

There were also 487 suicide attempts where the subjects had previous contact with VPD for mental health/EDP issues and had a history of having been committed, received medical or psychiatric assessment or had been previously listed as missing from an institution. Of these suicide attempts, 18 occurred on bridges.

In one case study an individual committed suicide by jumping off a bridge the same day he was released from hospital. In a second incident a patient committed suicide by jumping off a bridge while out on a two-hour pass from a hospital psychiatric unit.

The VPD’s controversial but pragmatic proposal: face the reality that some mentally ill patients must be institutionalized for their own protection. The city also desperately needs an Urgent Care Centre where those who are mentally ill can receive careful assessments and quick access to care.

It’s been almost 10 years since NPA Mayor Phillip Owen was forced out by his own party for championing the Four Pillars Strategy and a supervised injection site as the answer to Vancouver’s crisis of addiction and HIV infection.

The fate of Insite, opened in 2003 thanks to the leadership of Mayor Larry Campbell, will be settled once and for all May 12 by the Supreme Court of Canada. That’s the day the court will release its decision on an appeal, launched by the Harper Conservatives, of a BC Supreme Court ruling that blocked Ottawa’s attempts to shut the site down.

These days, Insite is turning away potential clients, particularly on welfare cheque days when the line-ups virtually stretch out the door.

The scientific analysis is clear: Insite has reduced HIV infection rates, overdose deaths, street disorder and drug crime. Now the Urban Health Research Initiative has concluded the site is also helping addicts obtain treatment and get clear of their addiction.

Dr. Julio Montaner, executive director of the Centre of Excellence for HIV/AIDS, told this morning’s meeting that the success of harm reduction strategies and HAART — highly active anti-retroviral therapy — have combined to produce dramatic drops in HIV infection rates. In effect, HAART treatment  is also preventing new infections.

But Ottawa, far from heeding the science, remains focussed on failed strategies and even seeks to shut Insite down.

The crisis that began with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1990s and took the lives of scores of intravenous drug users, was tackled first with needle exchanges. Then the focus became broader, with the supervised injection site at the centre of a four-pillars approach of prevention, enforcement, treatment and harm reduction.

With Insite in place, supported housing became a priority. Now, according to those advising Robertson this morning, it’s time for a new departure that is based on the latest research findings on urban health. For that approach to work, we may need a regional, rather than just a city perspective.

No matter what the Supreme Court decides, Montaner noted, it’s important to celebrate the successes. The city and its partners have saved countless lives and saved the province tens of millions of dollars in averted health expenditures. It’s impossible to turn back the clock.

Produced two years ago, the film is a major departure for Wild — she normally works independently but was commissioned to do this project by the Centre for Disease Control — and a logical sequel to Fix, the film that defined for many the campaign that resulted in Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection site.

Not surprisingly, Wild started her introductory comments with a brief celebration of today’s Federal Court decision upholding a BC Supreme Court ruling that required Ottawa to renew Insite’s operating permit. Both former Mayor Philip Owen and former city drug policy director Donald Macpherson were at the screening.

Available from the NFB, Bevel Up can be viewed as an unflinching look at the realities of life on the street as seen by the street nurses. But it can also be used as a teaching and discussion guide for those training for the job or interested in harm reduction.

Seven years after Philip Owen’s NPA rejected harm reduction, rejected his leadership and was swept out of office by Larry Campbell and COPE, the fight for harm reduction and sane drug policy continues. Bevel Up is a reminder of the cost paid every day by people on our streets.

The entire Wild series continues this week.