LOS ANGELES COUNTY –The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday, with Supervisor Sheila Kuehl opposing, to approve a motion by Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Mark Ridley-Thomas sponsoring state legislation amending the state’s definition of gravely disabled to enable the county to provide critical medical care for the mentally ill.
Numerous mental health professionals and advocates voiced support for the motion including Dr. Susan Patrovi, Medical Director of Homeless Healthcare LA, Brittney Weissman, Executive Director of National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Los Angeles County Council and Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu.
Supervisor Barger pointed out that more than 830 homeless people died on the streets of L.A. County last year and that with proper medical attention, the deaths could have been prevented.
“Allowing the most vulnerable to languish and even die on the streets without a lifeline to medical care is inhumane,” she said. “With today’s action, we can move forward to employ an effective approach to help deliver lifesaving treatment and care for those desperately in need and add California to 37 other states who consider medical treatment a basic human need for those suffering from a mental illness.”
The legislation would amend the state’s definition of “gravely disabled” pursuant to the recommendation by the Department of Mental Health (DMH), to read, “a condition in which a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is unable to provide for his or her basic personal needs for food, clothing, shelter, or medical treatment where the lack or failure of such treatment may result in substantial physical harm or death.” This proposed addition (in the underlined section above) is similar to the criteria used in 37 states nationwide.
On October 31, 2017 the Board of Supervisors approved a motion by Barger that directed DMH to work with mental health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, and other stakeholders to develop this legislative recommendation.
“Acknowledging that signs of physical harm due to self-neglect as a result of serious mental conditions are a rational and objective means for detecting grave disability,” said Dr. Jonathan Sherin, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.
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2 Comments
Thank goodness. We made a mistake in the 80’s changing law that took mentally ill people off the streets to care for them and went way to far the other way and left them to fend for themselves. Defenseless as children or even more so.
If I am ever mentally ill please don’t leave me on the streets unable to care for myself!
There’s a few problems with this: 1) There are not enough places now where we can put and treat patient’s who are on 5150’s, they end up languishing in ER’s and Urgent Care Centers for days, which is illegal. So, where are we going to treat an influx of even more patients on 5150’s, when there aren’t enough places to treat the people we are holding now?
2) So, you put all these people on psych holds due to lack of getting medical care– You cannot then go ahead and force medical treatment on them, they can still refuse medical care, even if they are on mental health (LPS) Conservatorships. The law would then also need to be amended so that it becomes legal to take away people’s rights to chose when and what kind of medical care they want, if any at all; the law would need to then allow forced medical treatment, which is a whole other issue than forced psychiatric care.
Bottom line is this: It’s all for political show. The Board of Supes want less homeless on the streets of LA, because then it will reflect positively on them, that “I was able to get homeless people off the streets, see how much less homeless there are?” But the big picture is not being addressed, which is, once you have them, what do you do with them? Once you allow people to be put on holds for lack of medical care, how do you force them to get medical care? No one is addressing this.