BILL NUMBER:  S7432

 TITLE OF BILL :
An act to amend the mental hygiene law, in relation to providing a
mental hygiene legal service to certain patients or residents of
residential healthcare facilities


 PURPOSE :
This bill provides mental hygiene legal services with authority to
provide legal assistance to patients or residents of residential
health care facilities including nursing homes who have been admitted
directly from a psychiatric facility or a psychiatric ward of a
hospital and who have a chronic mental illness for which they are
receiving services related to such illness.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :
Sections 1 of the bill amends section 47.01 subdivision (a) of the
mental hygiene law to include patients and residents of residential
healthcare facilities including nursing homes who have been directly
admitted from a facility licensed by the Office of Mental Health and
who have a chronic mental illness and are receiving services for such
illness.

Section 2 of the bill provides for an immediate effective date.

              

 JUSTIFICATION :
The NYS Court of Appeals, the State's highest court, recently ruled
that Mental Hygiene Legal Services (MHLS) lacks jurisdiction to
represent mentally ill individuals who have been admitted to nursing
homes from psychiatric centers and psychiatric hospital wards, because
the Office of Mental Health does not license the facilities.  This
despite the fact that the legislature amended the law in 1993 to
significantly expand MHLS' s jurisdiction to include individuals in a
range of other in and out-patient facilities without regard to the
type of facility or a person's lack of legal admission status and
avoid the need for MHLS to do battle to establish a jurisdictional
foothold.  Unfortunately 4 of the 7 jurors have decided that those
amendments are no sufficient to afford chronically mentally ill
individuals access of protective MHLS when in a setting not licensed
by OMH.

Beginning in the mid 1990's a practice of transferring individuals
from psychiatric centers and psychiatric wards of hospitals to
specialized units in nursing homes called neurobiological units
(NBD's) where they continued to receive intensive psychiatric
treatment was begun. These individuals were not there for traditional
nursing home care. A series of award winning articles in the NY Times
focused in part on this practice and claimed that the residents in the
NBD were being deprived their legal protection. The article claimed
that the NBDs were like being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric
center without any legal protections. MHLS began looking into the
matter and sought access to the residents and their records in order
to provide advocacy and legal representation. Nursing homes denied
them access, and in June 2003 MHLS commenced a court action seeking
jurisdiction to protect the rights of these individuals.  Nursing
homes have since shut down NBDs, however their continues a steady flow
of chronically mentally ill individuals being transferred from OMH
licensed psychiatric centers and hospital wards to nursing homes.

These chronically mentally ill individuals deserve the same
protections that they would be afforded had they remained in the OMH
licensed facilities. They are not being discharged because they have
been cured or stabilized. If they continue to require intensive,
institutional care and treatment that a nursing home provides, they
must continue to be provided with the protections that MHLS was
designed to provide. Many of these individuals have been in nursing
homes for years without legal representation waiting this court
decision. This bill will clearly put in statute MHLS' authority to
provide legal assistance to these chronically mentally ill individuals
who are alleged to be in need of care and treatment in such
restrictive settings.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :
New bill.

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
No new cost.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
Immediately.