Idaho passes important bill

As recently posted on the Treatment Advocacy Center's web site, Idaho has passed legislation that will help those with a severe mental illness who are often most vulnerable. The law will go into effect in July 2008.

I take heart and encouragement from knowing that common-sense approaches to helping those with severe mental illness who lack the insight to seek and remain in treatment do exist, and, that through education and advocacy, states such as Pennsylvania that require "clear and present danger to self or others" can also change their outdated laws.

I know that my friend whose daughter has been hospitalized four times and incarcerated once over the last six months hopes that we will soon have such a supportive, timely law in this state. Families who need to wait for their loved ones to receive consistent, sustained inpatient and/or outpatient treatment for their loves ones worry that their family members will not survive the constant months of cycling in and out between crisis situations and then hospitals and/or jails. I think of this form of mental health services as following the Russian roulette model of treatment. If you're lucky, your loved one will survive this trial period that is used to prove that someone is really, truly, undeniably in need of sustained treatment.

My friend's daughter was recently missing (again) and thankfully was found two days ago by a caring police officer who observed that she was in need of some help. The officer kindly took the time to take her to a hospital and was able to ensure that she could receive the treatment she needed through an involuntary commitment. Hopefully, the scary game of Russian roulette has ended and my friend's daughter now qualifies for sustained intervention.

SB 226, which would have allowed my friend's daughter the opportunity to access timely sustained assisted outpatient treatment after her second hospitalization or time spent in jail, could have helped to cut her time spent in hospitals and jails over the last six months in half.

If Idaho can take this common sense approach to treatment, certainly we can do the same in Pennsylvania.