(April 30, 2014) Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe signed legislation on Monday to reform the state’s mental health system with Sen. Creigh Deeds seated at his side (“McAuliffe signs ‘first step’ to reforming Virginia’s mental health system,” the Washington Post, April 28).
Last November, less than a day after Sen. Deeds’ son, Gus , was released from an emergency hold at a Virginia hospital - reportedly because no psychiatric beds were available - the young man stabbed his father in the head and torso before fatally shooting himself.
Just two months after losing his son, Sen. Deeds returned to the Virginia capital determined to turn personal loss into public gain by changing the laws that hindered access to treatment for his son.
On Monday McAuliffe and Deeds traveled to the same hospital that treated Deeds’ son to ceremonially sign SB 260, spearheaded by Deeds, which increases the duration of emergency psychiatric holds from 4 hours – currently the shortest in the nation – to 12, with a safety net clause that state mental health hospitals are required to accept patients for temporary detention after 8 hours. The bill also extends the time period that a person can be held involuntarily under a temporary detention order from 48 hours to 72 hours.
“It’s an important first step,” McAuliffe said. “Let us be crystal clear: We have a long, long way to go.”
While every improvement is worth celebrating, Gov. McAuliffe is correct, there is much more work to do.
Virginia remains the nation's extreme outlier on providing enough time for a mental health examiner to be called, to get to wherever the patient is being held because of psychiatric symptoms and to conduct an evaluation (48-72 hours is much more common).
What's more, some individuals - especially suicide risks – do not stabilize sufficiently during the emergency hold to leave the hospital safely. This is far more likely when the hold exceeds just a few hours.
The new law will go into effect on July 1.
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