“No New Yorker wants to see other New Yorkers living on the street…My hope is that the mayor, city agencies, and hospitals will work collaboratively with community partners to find ways that we can make this work to everybody’s benefit.”
On December 6, United Hospital Fund president and CEO Oxiris Barbot, MD, sat down with Erroll Louis on the NY1 current events show Inside City Hall to discuss NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ new policy to involuntarily hospitalize homeless New Yorkers suffering from severe mental illness.
Dr. Barbot told Mr. Louis that the city’s psychiatric health care system is currently fragmented and underfunded, making it extremely difficult to carry out the mayor’s policy. However, she said, “there are things we can do right now with the money we do have.” Her recommendations included focusing on prevention in order to minimize the number of New Yorkers who are homeless in the first place, and making sure each patient has a “warm handoff” in the community when discharged from the hospital, so they don’t end up back on the street.
The full interview can be viewed by clicking here.