When La Clinica De Familia took over mental health services from La Frontera just over three months ago, different community organizations promised to check in on the transition to make sure La Clinica de Familia was able to handle the takeover. A Behavioral Health Forum was held Monday to do just that.
On August 1st, La Clinica De Familia took over mental health services from La Frontera, the second transition of mental health services in Dona Ana County in less than three years. CEO of La Clinica de Familia Suzan Martinez de Gonzalez says the transition was smooth.
“Well the transition I think for our clients,” Martinez de Gonzalez said. “For the actual patients that are coming to see us, I hope that it has been relatively seamless. There was a few things where they had to re-register to our program to our system. But other than that, we didn’t see a huge disruption in the number of clients that were seen from one month to the next, and we consider that a success.”
Ron Gurley with the National Alliance for Mental Illness in Dona Ana County says so far this transition has gone much better than the last.
“I think it’s going about as well as it could,” Gurley said. “You run into things that they probably didn’t expect exactly, or didn’t know the volume or magnitude of some of the problems.”
Martinez de Gonzalez says in order to keep mental health services at La Clinica economically sustainable they need to see more patients, but they are having problems recruiting the doctors and staff that they need.
“In order to provide more services and to increase the access we have to have the counselors to provide the service,” Martinez de Gonzalez said. “So, we’ve had probably about 55 positions that have been open for like 6 months, and only filled about 10 of those positions, so there aren’t a lot of counselors that are out there looking for jobs, either they’ve left community, or we just can’t find them.”
Dona Ana County Commissioner Wayne Hancock says proper mental health services contribute to quality of life and economic development, and the county can help bring groups together to help recruit mental health professionals to the county.
“We can help facilitate the relationships,” Hancock said. “With, for example, the chamber of commerce, with MVEDA, with the realtor’s association. I think helping to continue the dialogue and let others know that we know that there are important things that need to be addressed is the way that we can help.”
Martinez de Gonzalez says they are also looking to help advance the training of the current staff, and are looking at ways to improve the kind of therapy they provide.
“When appropriate it is really good to see people in a group session,” Martinez de Gonzalez said. “A lot of times the group session, it helps bring out so much more from a client, rather than from an individual. I’m not taking away from individual sessions, they’re needed. But the group session really helps. They challenge each other and take themselves to a whole other level that is really healing.”
Martinez de Gonzalez says more staff will also help to provide more availability for appointments nights and weekends.
