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The Miami Herald

January 3, 2003

Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

LETTER
Reform Baker Act to help the mentally ill

Rachel H. Diaz, Miami

The Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit accusing Miami police of violating the civil rights of Richard Beatty, a homeless, mentally ill man.

Beatty was killed because the police weren’t properly trained to handle such a person – and Beatty’s illness was untreated because we haven’t worked hard enough to change the state’s antiquated commitment laws, specifically the Baker Act.

This lawsuit gives families of persons with severe mental illnesses the opportunity to show what it means to love and care for a relative who is unable to comprehend that feelings of fear, grandiosity, sadness, delusions, voices and altered thoughts and sensations aren’t real.  When fearful, mistrustful and convinced that they aren’t sick, mentally ill people refuse or discontinue medical care.

Florida law ignores excellent possibilities of effective treatment with new medicines and places the civil right to refuse treatment above the humanitarian right of the state to mandate psychiatric care.  Ordering medical care gives the mentally ill a chance for a better life not available any other way.  When these individuals are treated, they benefit and so do the families and the community; and the state saves money.

Many states have expanded the standards of involuntary-commitment laws and have implemented assisted outpatient treatment for the most severely mentally ill persons.

The illness itself robs 50 percent of the people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders of the capacity to comprehend that they are sick and in need of psychiatric help.  When our family members remain untreated and psychotic, as was Richard Beatty, many become homeless or are jailed.  Some commit suicide by confronting the police.  The cost of all these unending and unsuccessful interventions is too high.

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