Advocacy E-news August 3, 2016
August 3, 2016
ASSAULTS DOWN AT ANCORA
Serious assaults on patients and employees at Ancora Psychiatric Hospital plunged during the first quarter of 2016, according to a new report published last week by the state’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Between January and March, no employees assaulted patients at any of the hospitals, according to the report. There were also no deaths during the quarter.
CHRISTIE SIGNS SUICIDE PREVENTION BILL AIMED AT COLLEGE STUDENTS
Gov. Chris Christie on Monday signed into law a suicide prevention bill focusing on college students. The measure, called The Madison Holleran Suicide Prevention Act, was inspired by a New Jersey high school track star and Ivy League college student who took her own life in January 2014. The new law requires New Jersey colleges to make a mental health professional available around the clock to counsel students.
SUICIDAL MAN FATALLY SHOT AFTER HE REFUSED TO DROP KNIFE
Police fatally shot an 18-year-old Toms River resident Saturday after he advanced toward officers while holding a knife and asking that they kill him. The victim called 911 shortly before 2 p.m. on Saturday saying that he wanted to commit suicide, according to a statement released by Ocean County Prosecutor. The officers asked him to surrender and drop the knife, but he began advancing towards them in a “threatening manner,” Detectives later found a note in which he apologizes to the officer who would respond to his 911 call, in the letter, he wrote that it was his goal to commit “suicide by officer”.
EDITORIAL: ANOTHER SHAMEFUL VA FAILURE
When Sen. Richard Codey paid a surprise visit last week to a Dover boarding house for older veterans with physical and mental-health issues, he wasn’t just concerned about reports he had received about poor living conditions. He was deeply frustrated, having visited the same facility for the same reason two years ago, only to find out that little if any progress had been made since then. Most disgraceful of all, perhaps, is that there was nothing wrong with conditions at the home in the eyes of those responsible for overseeing the facility — the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Bureau of Rooming and Boarding Houses, and New Jersey’s Department of Veterans Affairs.
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