Key reforms called for in a 2012 report critical of Virginia’s mental health system finally will be implemented in 2014, officials said in a report drafted after a high-profile case in which the son of a state senator was denied care before stabbing his father and killing himself.
The report was written and rollout dates set after Austin “Gus” Deeds stabbed his father, state Sen. Creigh Deeds, then fatally shot himself, said Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services spokeswoman Meghan McGuire.
One key change makes state psychiatric hospital directors responsible for finding a bed when local community services boards cannot.
Starting in January, if a community services board can’t find a psychiatric bed, the state hospital in that region must take the patient or arrange placement at another facility, according to a document The News Leader obtained Thursday.
The report updated the agency’s progress on a collection of recommendations from a 2012 inspector general’s report on failed temporary detention orders.
“The issues you mention are complex, involve multiple parties from various fields and well over 100 different private and public hospitals, and deal with the practice of medicine,” McGuire said. “Not only does it take time to work through differing opinions and reach a consensus with such varied concerns, we meanwhile (are) juggling other important projects and priorities as part of our responsibly at DBHDS.”
No additional funds will be required to implement the changes, McGuire said.
Why is it that nothing ever happens until there is a horrible incident? The shooting of State Senator Creigh Deeds and the subsequent suicide of his son precipitated these moves. Surely the Deeds case is high profile. How many other families have suffered but they just weren’t important enough to draw our attention?
We must reform. How many innocent people have been mowed down in cold blood because someone dropped a ball or two when dealing with someone who is seriously mentally ill. Mental illness is the last taboo. There are approximately 400,000,000 people in the United States who suffer from mental illness. Returning vets with PTSD, the homeless, people suffering from addictions are just examples of people with mental illness. We easily talk about those descriptors but leave off the mental illness part. Then there are the mentally ill who seek treatment and we don’t talk about it.
We have gone from being a country that helps families with loved ones with mental illness to a country that protects the privacy of patients, often at a very dire cost. This mind set must change. We must pay more attention to families and their needs and less attention to the legalities of privacy.
We must get to the point where we accept that one’s character is not their illness.
One good item of news for Mental Health is that the Children’s Treatment Center up in Loudoun wants to expand, Dominion also want to add a new facility, and there is an outfit that is seeking approval to build a 75-bed psych hospital in Woodbridge sometime in 2014. Increasing available treatment centers is always a good thing. Novant Health has plans to expand their outpatient treatment by adding this center out in Haymarket. They shifted four beds on the Prince William Campus out of the main hospital to the counseling center behind the hospital.
But your right…nobody reacts until there is something which causes the reaction. Isaac Newton was right…just did not realize his Law applied to more than Physics.
Ray’s last statement is so true. It isn’t until someone important gets harmed that there is a positive reaction. If Deeds had been just plain Joe Doaks, nothing would have been done. Maybe one squibb in a local fish wrap but that would be it.