ADVOCACY NEWS FROM NAMI NEW JERSEY:
Family members and consumers supporting a bill (S2760)
which would establish involuntary outpatient commitment
to treatment for persons in need of involuntary commitment
filled the Senate Health Committee hearing yesterday. S2760
is in keeping with the recommendations of the Governor’s
Task Force on Mental Health.
Listen to the Hearing:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/media/archive_audio2.asp?KEY=SHH&SESSION=2004
Read the News Reports:
1. BILL WOULD FORCE TREATMENT ON SOME MENTALLY ILL
2. BILL ON MENTALLY ILL SPURS RIGHTS DEBATE
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BILL WOULD FORCE TREATMENT ON SOME MENTALLY ILL
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20050812&Category=NEWS03&ArtNo=508120362
&SectionCat=&Template=printart
Published in the Asbury Park Press 08/12/05
BY LAUREN O. KIDD
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON — Off medication, people have walked through
a snowstorm with bare feet, decided to "live outside"
in weather below 40 degrees, even inadvertently wandered
in front of a train, recalled the chair of the state Task
Force on Mental Health.
Still, critics of a plan to use the court to force the
mentally ill to follow their treatment plans say such orders
would violate people's rights. But backers of the plan say
they're weary of such arguments.
Robert Davison, executive director of the Mental Health
Association of Essex County and chairman of the task force
acting Gov. Codey initiated in his first day in office,
said one of the task force's most "controversial"
ways to improve mental health care is involuntary commitment.
He said it is necessary to treat the most severely mentally
ill citizens of New Jersey.
Phillip Lubitz, director of advocacy programs for NAMI
New Jersey, called such citizens the "people that are
too ill to take care of themselves."
The Senate health committee Thursday heard testimony on
"involuntary outpatient commitment," or court-ordered
treatment of the mentally ill that could include medication,
case management, residential care and partial hospitalization.
The controversy raises "fundamental issues of individual
liberty, social responsibility and public safety,"
said John Jacobi, associate director of Seton Hall University's
Institute of Law and Mental Health.
The mentally ill in New Jersey are subject to involuntary
inpatient programs if they are determined to be a threat
to themselves or others. The proposed law, sponsored by
Codey and state Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen, calls for
involuntary outpatient programs.
If approved, the initiative will apply to about 400 of
New Jersey's most at-risk mentally ill, according to task
force members.
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BILL ON MENTALLY ILL SPURS RIGHTS DEBATE
Plan to force therapy on dangerous patients
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1123826248227870.xml&coll=1
Friday, August 12, 2005
By Susan K. Livio
Star-Ledger Staff
Lawmakers yesterday debated the most controversial item
on acting Gov. Richard Codey's ambitious mental health agenda:
a proposal allowing judges to require that seriously mentally
ill patients submit to outpatient treatment if they pose
a safety threat.
The clash over a patient's civil liberties versus a community's
right to safety dominated the intense three-hour debate,
the first hearing on the bill by the Senate Health Human
Services and Senior Citizens Committee.
"I don't think this bill should be going any place
anytime soon," said Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), the
committee vice chairman. He expressed concern the bill would
usurp the rights of people who "made bad choices"
and were not actually ill.
But the "involuntary outpatient commitment" bill
(S2760), has powerful allies. Codey, who is also Senate
president, co-sponsored it after the majority of his Advisory
Task Force on Mental Health endorsed the law's concept in
March. And the Legislature approved Codey's budget this
year that included $1.5 million for the screening, treatment
and administrative costs associated with ordering 100 patients
into treatment, task force chairman Robert Davison said.
The bill would allow Superior Court judges to require a
mentally ill person to take prescribed medication or see
a therapist if the patient is likely to become "dangerous
in the reasonably foreseeable future" to himself or
others, Seton Hall Law professor and task force member John
Jacobi told the committee.
The law could apply to about 400 high-risk people out of
the 400,000 people in New Jersey with serious mental illnesses
such as schizophrenia, said John Monahan, executive director
of Greater Trenton Behavioral Health Services, who also
testified in support of the bill. This last-resort remedy
is needed because the illness "so distorts their perceptions
they do not recognize they are ill," Monahan said.
A patient who did not comply with a judge's order could
be committed to a hospital if a licensed clinician recommended
it, Davison said.
Rutgers professor Nancy Wolff roundly criticized the bill.
"People with serious mental illness may understand
and perceive a need for treatment," Wolff said. Some
resist, however, because they "do not like how they
are treated or the side effects of the medications."
Many report they do not have help finding a workable treatment
plan, she said.
Wolff, director of Mental Health Services and Criminal
Justice at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Public Policy,
also warned that such a law "reinforces and invites
stigma" that people with mental illness "cannot
be trusted."
While the hearing in Trenton yesterday was open to the
public, only invited guests were allowed to speak. Committee
chairman Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) promised any member
of the public would have the right to speak during further
hearings on the bill in the fall.
Gerald Higgins, a 53-year-old consumer advocate from Dover,
said he plans to be there, urging passage of the bill. It's
a "personal" issue for him. A close friend with
schizophrenia once attacked him but doesn't realize he's
sick, Higgins said. "We're sitting around waiting for
a tragedy to happen."
