Underestimating The Cost Of Expanding Outpatient Commitment, Or What A
Difference A Year Makes

Last year, the Department of Planning and Budget estimated the cost of
increased outpatient commitment at $25,000 per person per Community Services
Board. That comes to 1 million dollars if just one person per 40 Community
Services Board is ordered into outpatient commitment. This year, the Office
of Planning and Budget says that 4.5 million dollars will cover an estimated
3,750 more individuals ordered into outpatient treatment per year. 3,750
multiplied by $25,000 is $93 million, $750,000 dollars or $93,750,000.
What changed?
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There are days in this state under current criteria where there are no open psychiatric beds in the entire state, where are the new people committed under expanded criteria going to go? There are already no voluntary beds left in the state hospital system, if this passes there won't be any left in the private/community hospitals.

The only inpatient treatment will be forced/involuntary treatment and all incentives to make care of good quality and empowering will go out the window in psych. units. If your patients have no choice why bother making them comfortable or even feeling safe?

I strongly oppose this bill. The standard for involuntary commitment should be stringent. The standard for involuntary commitment should be based upon "present reality", and not on "supposed potential". And by the way, the current standard is not as stringent as the proponents of this bill would like one to believe.

Involuntary commitment is indeed a gross violation of one’s basic civil and human rights. As such, there must be gross justification for this gross infringement. This demands “stringent thresholds”. The nanny state mindset of "Better safe than sorry." is unconscionable and must be replaced with "beyond all reasonable doubt". Indeed, I am appalled at the nonchalant and cavalier attitude toward locking people up that is typically displayed by the employees of the state mental health system.

It is particularly reprehensible that the evaluation of this standard is based entirely upon the opinions of practitioners of an entirely subjective and ambiguous pseudoscience whose inherently high potential for misdiagnosis's is not even given lip service by these practitioners. Psychiatry has no objective verifiable or repeatable "standards". "Diagnosis's" are completely dependent upon subjective and open to interpretation clinical interviews. In a forced setting, these "clinical interviews" are obviously in a stressful and adversarial setting. This is hardly what one would call a productive doctor - patient relationship, especially for a so called profession supposedly built upon listening and trust building. Yet this potential for misdiagnosis and misunderstanding is absolutely missing from these psychiatrists's train of thoughts. People "diagnosed" with mental illness are automatically and infallibly assumed to have the said mental illness. I charge the power the state gives to these people only reinforces their overbearing Chicken Little mentalities.

This bill is further flawed in that it gives NO protections for those who will fall under these loosened standards. Where is the concern for the many more that will be misdiagnosed and forced into unwarranted treatment? Where is the concern toward the many more that will be abused by the State Mental Health System by these loosened standards?

Hard to believe this is really America. Hard to believe this state was a birthplace for liberty and individual rights. Hard to believe this is supposedly a government of reason.

With a 9% release rate from involuntary commitment hearings in May of 2007, what exactly is the Senate trying to "fix" by loweing the standard for involuntary commitment. One region of the state had a 100% commitment rate. Do they want 110%??

The eradication of confidentiality of clincian/patient communication will have a chilling effect on all mental health provision in this state and will drive people out of services or keep them away in the first place. It will also cause ethical professionals to retire or leave the state to practice somewhere where they can abide by the ethics of their profession(s).

This is an unneccessary intrusion on the privacy of Virginia's citizens and rather than promoting public safety will most likely endanger the public.