Mental health event highlights privacy hurdles
Congressman Tim Murphy stands with State Representative Dan Miller inside the Beth El Congregation synagogue in Scott Township, where each told of the ongoing difficulties in the youth mental health field.
Retired TV reporter, Mary Robb Jackson, tells how she was inspired by Ian Cummins, who walked across America to bring attention to suicide awareness, after she lost her own mother to suicide.
Congressman Tim Murphy (R-Upper St. Clair) said it was a solemn reminder to host the second annual Children and Youth Disability and Mental Health Summit at the Beth El Congregation, where Richard Baumhammers started his shooting spree in 2000 that left five people dead.
“Treatment for a serious mental illness cuts the potential for violence 15-fold,” said Murphy, who introduced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act in 2013.
Murphy spoke at the event hosted by Rep. Dan Miller (D-Mt. Lebanon), and was joined by other state and federal legislators, health care providers, and families affected by mental disabilities.
“I’m confident we’ll see action on this. Six U.S. Senators have said they’re going to introduce their own version, and this bill has 115 co-sponsors,” Murphy said.
The bill would, among other things, clarify HIPAA rules so families could provide health care workers with important information about minors suffering from mental distress.
“They know the person, they know the medication. Imagine if an orthodontist was told, ‘you can’t look at x-rays,’ and that’s absurd. History of a patient is crucial to patient care,” he said.
Getting early intervention and follow-up care is crucial, Murphy said, because as mortality rates for cancer, stroke and auto accidents are declining, suicide rates continue to climb. There were more than 40,000 suicides in 2014.
“My mother took her own life when I was 18. She left behind a 6-year-old, my brother,” said retired TV reporter Mary Robb Jackson, who moderated a panel of individuals affected by mental disability.
One of those was Ian Cummins, who walked across America to draw awareness to suicide after his brother took his own life. He now works at the Evaluation and Referral Center at UPMC Mercy Hospital, where he counsels people with addiction or mental disability.
“I worked in the ICU in the hospital before and it’s kind of sad, because I walked past the ERC office every day and I thought it was a closet,” Cummins said.
Part of the problem is Act 147 from 2004, which allows a minor 14 years of age or older to make their own decisions regarding mental health treatment.
“There are such things as 302 forms which we can appeal to if we believe a child is in imminent danger, or is reporting more than just suicidal thoughts, and can have them committed for a short time,” he said, “but those are rare, and hard to get.”
That leaves minors in a dangerous position. A bill from Representative Pam Snyder (D-Waynesburg) to amend Act 147 to clarify that 14-year-olds can consent to, or deny care was referred to the Human Services committee Feb. 5, but Rep. Miller said even if it passes, it doesn’t go far enough.
“We don’t let a 14-year-old drive a car, but we let them deny potentially life-saving treatment,” Miller said.
“As we expanded children’s rights in court and in the public, it’s come at the expense of parental rights. Is the answer 16? I think it’s 18, but 14 is a detriment to the child and to the parents.”
A 17-year-old Connecticut girl who was forced to undergo chemotherapy against her will by the state’s supreme court has had her cancer go into remission, according to the Associated Press. The girl, identified as Cassandra C. in court documents, told the AP “she’s happy her cancer is in remission, but still upset that she had no choice in the matter,” and that “she still believes alternative treatments would have had the same result as chemotherapy.”