New law changes mental health treatment rules

Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday signed into law a bill that will change outpatient commitment standards for people with serious mental illness, with the aim of helping people get needed mental health treatment.

“The addition of community-based outpatient health treatment as part of the involuntary treatment spectrum is a significant step forward in helping vulnerable individuals access the services that they need,” Mr. Wolf wrote in a statement sent to the General Assembly after the bill was signed.

House Bill 1233 had passed both the state House and Senate unanimously. A number of family members of people with serious mental illness had championed the bill.

Ruth Johnston, whose son, Levi Staver, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to third-degree murder, applauded the Legislature’s passage of the bill.

“It means a lot to me,” she said. “It’s a big step in the right direction.”

Ms. Johnston wrote a letter Monday to the governor urging him to sign the bill.

She recounted her family’s experience with her son, who is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, when he was having delusions in 2012 and 2013. At the time, he wasn’t considered to be dangerous and therefore did not fit the criteria under Pennsylvania’s Mental Health Procedures Act for mandatory outpatient treatment.

In February 2013, because he said angels told him to, he stabbed his grandmother to death.

“They don’t get that the worst that can happen isn’t that you can gain weight and get a headache,” Ms. Johnston said. “The worst that can happen is what happened to Levi.”

Since he has been imprisoned and medicated, Staver, who is serving 10 to 20 years in prison, now has insight into understanding what happened to him, his mom said.

“He loves his medicine, and he wishes he’d gotten it years ago,” Ms. Johnston said.

Several mental health advocacy organizations had raised concerns about the bill, in part because it provided no new funding, and had asked the governor to veto the legislation.

In Mr. Wolf’s statement to legislators, he noted the lack of new funding. “As passed, assisted outpatient treatment may only be available to those Pennsylvanians that reside in counties which choose to support them using existing funds. Additionally, concerns have been raised about an individual’s rights relative to the length of the look back period that can be used to seek court ordered treatment.” The governor said he hoped to continue to work with legislators on these issues.

Frankie Berger, director of advocacy for the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va., is thrilled that the governor signed the bill.

“This piece of legislation has been 20 years in the making,” she said.

Over that time, families who sought help for their loved ones gave up hope and lost momentum, seeing as the status quo that individuals who were terribly ill — but did not meet the standard of a clear and present danger — would languish in jails and emergency rooms.

“Today, that completely changes. It’s going to allow people who are very sick and need help to receive treatment,” she said.

Ms. Berger said she expects the implementation to go well in Pennsylvania because counties that can offer these outpatient services are primed to do so.

“Their hands aren’t tied anymore.”