General Resources / Legal Resources / Medical Resources / Briefing Papers / State Activity    
Hospital Closures / Preventable Tragedies / Press Room / Search Our Site / Home

Delaware County Times

December 18, 2005

Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

To the Editor:

Recently the “Delaware County Daily Times” published a series of articles about mental illness and policy issues related to mental illness. One of these articles discussed proposed State Senate Bill 213, which allows for court-ordered outpatient treatment for a small number of mentally ill individuals. In response, Mr. Joseph Rogers, President and CEO of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, has written that this bill “gives the false impression that it would help people who have mental illnesses as well as protect the community.”

To evaluate the proposed State Senate Bill 213, it is important to note that this bill would not affect most individuals who have mental illness and would not even affect most mentally ill individuals who do not comply with treatment. Rather, this bill would provide mandated assisted outpatient treatment for a very few people who met seven stringent criteria, including previous violent behavior or threats of violence. Specifically, assisted outpatient treatment would be provided if the court found that, among the seven criteria, “(4) the patient has a history of lack of compliance with treatment for mental illness that has: (i) at least twice within the preceding 36 months been a significant factor in necessitating hospitalization, or receipt of services in a forensic or other mental health unit of a correctional facility… or (ii) resulted in one or more acts of serious violent behavior toward self or others or threats of, or attempts at, serious physical harm to self or others within the preceding 48 months…”. The patient would have the right to due process and other protections before being ordered into treatment.

In states where assisted outpatient treatment has been established it has been shown to have multiple benefits, including reductions in hospital re-admissions, victimization, arrests, incarcerations, and violent behavior. Furthermore, state and county programs to administer and monitor assisted outpatient treatment, state and county programs could have far-reaching benefits. For instance, since New York established assisted outpatient treatment, the Commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health stated, “We have seen improved access to mental health services, improved coordination of service planning, enhanced accountability, and improved collaboration between the mental health and court systems… Individuals with mental illness who participate in assisted outpatient treatment are able to make and maintain real gains in their recovery – the data tells us that, and so do the recipients.”*

Although State Senate Bill 213 has important benefits to offer, I agree with Mr. Rogers that better access to mental health services is the key to improving the lives of people with mental illness. As Mr. Rogers stated in his letter, “… better services would engage more ‘hard to serve’ individuals, leading to better outcomes and saving dollars and lives.” The recent series of articles in your newspaper gave a thorough presentation of the county services for people with mental illness, including the need for improved and expanded services. Citizens need to advocate for increased state and county funding to improve the services available for individuals with mental illness.

Sincerely,

Ingrid Waldron