Today! Psychiatric Deterioration law goes into effect

Hi David,

Today a new law goes into effect that allows people living with serious mental illnesses to receive treatment based on psychiatric deterioration in addition to the danger to self/others and grave disability.

Act 382 now recognizes that a person may need treatment based on the deteriorative nature of the illness itself, not just behavior. REAL serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, bipolar disease, schizoaffective disorder, major depressive disorders, etc., are manageable but not preventable nor curable. We will know when they are because someone will win a Nobel prize for it.

About half of people living with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Diseases lack insight they are sick and, therefore, logically will not seek help. The cruel irony, in many ways of serious mental illness, is that many times the part of the brain that's causing the mental illness symptoms is the same part of the brain that would that's necessary for knowing that you have a problem. Without treatment, the consequences are incarceration, homelessness, and death.

Today, many families in Louisiana will sleep easier knowing that they 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, this legal change is not a panacea to a fragmented and disconnected system of substandard care plagued by low wages and staff/provider shortages. There is much work to be done to improve hospitals and treatment and care throughout the continuum.

Healing Minds NOLA recently started bi-monthly advocacy group meetings to identify problems our stakeholders are seeing/experiencing in New Orleans and across Louisiana. Your voices need to be heard. Your stories need to be told. To sign up, just send us an email with a request to join, and we'll add you to our list. The next meeting will be Wednesday, August 10th at 5:30 pm.

Thanks again 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!

Please visit us on social media and at HealingMindsNOLA.org

With gratitude,

Janet Hays

Director - Healing Minds NOLA

(504) 274 6091

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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