HB 335 Advances to the Governor's Desk

By Janet Hays

Submitted by David E. Geiger, MEE, PE (RET)

Hi David,

Great news! HB 335, legislation that will allow people living with serious mental illnesses to receive treatment based on psychiatric deterioration, passed the Senate today with a vote of 35-0.

What a great way to end Mental Health Awareness Month! Providing people living with serious mental illnesses… REAL illnesses… access to treatment as an alternative to homelessness, incarceration, or death – is a step in the right direction.

Today, many families in Louisiana will sleep easier knowing that the day is soon coming when they will no longer have to wait for a loved one to become violent, or terribly chronically ill, in order to get them to a doctor with expertise in psychiatric diseases.

As we’ve stated in past communications, HB 335 is not a panacea to a fragmented and disconnected system of substandard care plagued by low wages and staff/provider shortages. We are not stopping here. We are committed to our mission to advocate for the implementation of a full streamlined continuum of coordinated psychiatric treatment and care for people suffering from often debilitating serious mental illnesses.

This summer, with the help of the Tulane Internship Program, we will be expanding efforts to recommence our community outreach meetings. Your voices need to be heard. Your stories need to be told. Watch for an update on all we have planned soon.

Special thanks to Representative Royce Duplessis who listened through the tears of families handcuffed to help loved ones in serious mental illness crises, and to our partners at Treatment Advocacy Center who helped to craft the Bill.

We cannot do what we do without your support. Consider donating today to help us grow our advocacy. Our voice is your voice. Let’s pump up the volume!

With gratitude,

Janet Hays
Director - Healing Minds NOLA
(504) 274 6091

Please visit us on social media and at HealingMindsNOLA.org

Send comments and questions, concerns, and praise, to HealingMindsNOLA@gmail.com

Healing Minds NOLA is a 501c3 non-profit charitable & educational organization dedicated to identifying & creating alternatives to incarceration, homelessness, and early death for seriously mentally people.

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Make your tax-deductible donation to Healing Minds NOLA today.

Re: In the Matter of Edwin Potter: Mental Illness and Criminal Justice Reform

To read more articles, read reviews, view YouTube and other videos and tutorials, access the website at www.davidegeiger.com

IMOEP is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.davidegeiger.com

“I thought that people who have schizophrenia are a menace to society and that we need to be very careful of associating with them. However, this book changes that belief…”

—Harvey Copper, 5/5 stars on Goodreads

David Geiger is a licensed and retired professional electrical engineer who spent 7 years in psychiatric hospitals and over 40 years since 1979 in the courts because of his schizophrenia. He began writing about mental illness and criminal justice reform in May 1998. He writes about his illness in his book In the Matter of Edwin Potter as well as those who have the illness and are caught up in the criminal legal system.