Post by Logan on Jan 18, 2016 18:41:36 GMT -6
‘Tim’s Law’ aims to keep mentally ill out of Kentucky hospitals, off streets
Frankfort -- Tim Morton was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment dozens of times over 36 years, often involuntary and in police handcuffs, because he did not recognize that he had schizophrenia. He refused treatment unless he was confined. When Morton wasn’t held inside Eastern State Hospital, he spent his days walking aimlessly around downtown Lexington.
Like many mentally ill Kentuckians, Morton was neither dangerous enough to be kept in a hospital for long nor healthy enough to care for himself in the community. Malnourished, a heavy smoker, he was beaten at least once by a group of youths. He died in 2014 from long-neglected health problems. He was 56.
On Thursday, the House Health and Welfare Committee approved a bill to let some mentally ill Kentuckians be ordered by judges into outpatient medical treatment, a step shy of institutionalization, with public defenders representing them at hearings and caseworkers monitoring their daily progress. Part of the bill would be called “Tim’s Law,” for Tim Morton.
If successful, House Bill 94 would “keep people out of the revolving door of the hospital,” Sheila Schuster of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition told the committee.
Continued at: www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article54742050.html
Frankfort -- Tim Morton was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment dozens of times over 36 years, often involuntary and in police handcuffs, because he did not recognize that he had schizophrenia. He refused treatment unless he was confined. When Morton wasn’t held inside Eastern State Hospital, he spent his days walking aimlessly around downtown Lexington.
Like many mentally ill Kentuckians, Morton was neither dangerous enough to be kept in a hospital for long nor healthy enough to care for himself in the community. Malnourished, a heavy smoker, he was beaten at least once by a group of youths. He died in 2014 from long-neglected health problems. He was 56.
On Thursday, the House Health and Welfare Committee approved a bill to let some mentally ill Kentuckians be ordered by judges into outpatient medical treatment, a step shy of institutionalization, with public defenders representing them at hearings and caseworkers monitoring their daily progress. Part of the bill would be called “Tim’s Law,” for Tim Morton.
If successful, House Bill 94 would “keep people out of the revolving door of the hospital,” Sheila Schuster of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition told the committee.
Continued at: www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article54742050.html