Courtenay seeks more funding after MICR drives nearly 90% rise in community mental health contacts while ER visits stay flat

**TL;DR:** The Mobile Integrated Crisis Response (MICR) team in Courtenay boosted daily mental health contacts by almost 90% over six months, while emergency department visits for mental health did not rise. City officials now ask for more funding to sustain and expand the service.

In April 2025, RCMP town halls flagged mental health as a pressing community issue, prompting local police and health agencies to launch MICR as a proof‑of‑concept pilot. The team pairs a mental‑health‑trained officer with a psychiatric nurse to respond to crises in the field.

From September 2024 to April 2025, before MICR, responders logged 912 crisis encounters. After the program started in September 2025, encounters rose to over 1,000 by April 2026, with roughly half involving MICR staff. Lesley Howie reported that daily contacts increased by nearly 90% during the six‑month period, yet emergency department presentations for mental health remained flat.

The data come from a before‑after cohort analysis, which compares the same group before and after an intervention, using two six‑month windows; no control group was used, so the observed rise in contacts correlates with MICR introduction but does not prove causation.

Still, the unchanged ER visit rate suggests the team is reaching people who previously did not seek care, potentially easing future hospital demand.

Practical takeaway: community‑based crisis teams can expand access to mental health support without increasing acute‑care load, a model worth monitoring for scalability.

Officials will review the program’s cost‑effectiveness and patient outcomes before deciding on additional city funding, with a decision expected later this year.