According to political party LPF Eindhoven, a lot of the pressure on ordinary ambulance services and the police would be relieved if Eindhoven started using ‘psycholances’.
As of May, psycholances will be driving around in Amsterdam. These are special ambulances with psychiatric nurses on board. They provide immediate help to confused people and also arrange the transportation of patients to and from a psychiatric institution.
At the moment this transport is still being executed by regular ambulance staff, but they frequently have to call on the police for help when a patient is getting agitated or even aggressive. This is not only an additional burden for the police, but also for the ambulance staff , who are not trained to deal with psychiatric patients.
The LPF have asked the mayor and aldermen questions about this matter. They would like Eindhoven to follow the example of Amsterdam and begin a trial with psycholances.
