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Peer Specialists
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Panel OKs Mental Health Changes A Senate Committee Approved Five Bills, Including One That Improves Monitoring Patients
By
Mason Adams
RICHMOND -- A Senate panel approved proposed policy changes in the state mental health system Wednesday that are intended to fill gaps exposed by April's shootings at Virginia Tech. The Senate Finance Committee voted 16-0 in favor of five bills while declining five others, based largely on a lack of available money during a year when revenue projections seem to be shrinking.
The
centerpiece of the package is Senate
Bill 246, a measure endorsed by Gov. Tim
Kaine that would ease Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, noted that the committee has considered similar bills in past years, but that the Virginia Tech shootings had made them a priority. "Too many times it takes a tragedy for us to get critical mass behind a funding item," Wampler said. "If you examine the components within all these bills, there are funding initiatives we've tried to do for a number of years." A state panel investigating the shootings at Virginia Tech found gunman Seung-Hui Cho entered the university with a mental disorder that Tech officials knew nothing about. The university and the state's mental health system compounded the problem by not ensuring that Cho received needed services and not adequately sharing information about behavior that raised concerns. The panel's report said narrow interpretations of federal privacy laws and liability concerns limited the information that Tech officials and the university's counseling center shared about Cho's behavior. His parents were not notified when female students filed complaints about Cho's behavior in the fall of 2005, nor were they told when he was temporarily detained in a behavioral health facility after a roommate reported he might be suicidal. After the detention, Cho was ordered by a judge in December 2005 to receive outpatient treatment, but that order was never followed up. The state panel and advocates say Cho's case exposed gaps in a state mental health system that's overburdened and underfunded. State officials hope to fix that. Kaine proposed $42 million in new mental health spending over the next two years, with much of it intended to fund the reforms proposed in SB 246. That influenced the committee's decision on the bill.
"What
you have before you today can be funded
within the parameters of the executive
budget as presented to us," said Sen.
Edd Houck, The committee meanwhile set aside a number of other bills that elaborated on many of the approaches espoused in SB 246.
Among
them was a bill to enact "Kendra's Law"
in Houck said he recognized the bill's importance, but with the combination of "very uncertain fiscal times that we're in" and cost estimates ranging from $4 million to $25 million annually, the subcommittee recommended the "Kendra's Law" bill receive further study from a joint subcommittee. Also set aside were a pair of bills, sponsored by Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, to establish and fund crisis intervention teams and two to five specialty mental health courts. Several committee members said the legislation they approved was only a start and the subject will need to be revisited in coming years. "This doesn't solve all the problems," Wampler said. "There will still be waiting lists in the community for mental health services. We may have beefed up the emergency services, but to think that this will solve those challenges -- it will not. But it's our best effort to patch up what we can in response to a horrible, horrible situation." A series of similar bills in the House of Delegates is awaiting consideration in an Appropriations subcommittee. |
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