COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH

Psychology/ Community Mental Health





Community Mental Health

Mental care should be a right instead of a privilege

The right to health care grows out of the recognition that it is a public good. The first hospitals in this country were established not because the sick insisted on being treated, or because they demanded health care as a right. They were established by communities that felt a responsibility to care for those who needed it. Health care was perceived as an obligation, not a business model. In the United States, we've not been about that. Our system of healthcare has been one of a privilege. Health insurance was devised to support those terrible things: hospitalizations, car wrecks, that sort of, thing. It was not meant to cover the day-to-day maintenance of healthcare.

Of course, this evolved over time. The medications became more expensive. Health insurance broadened, so instead of being something for that panic moment, when some dreadful thing happens, it became maintenance for us. It became our daily livelihood. If one had a job, you got health insurance with it. It started to become a right of the employed. If health care was a right granted by God, then we would all be healthy and never have to worry about health care. However, you seem to consider a right to be something granted to you by the government at the expense of everyone else. If your health care is going to be at the expense of anyone else, it should be by that person's private accord and charity. Health care is not a right. Saying that you will kill yourself because you cannot get your finances in order does not make you look desperate or in need, it makes you look pathetic (Alem, 2008).

Baker Act

This provision clearly requires the consent of the minor's guardian for any treatment on an inpatient basis. If your facility uses the model Baker Act forms for “General Authorization for Treatment except Psychotropic Medications” and “Authorization for Psychotropic Medications”, there is space at the top of the form for the guardian to authorize psychiatric assessment and for “other” which might include psychotherapy (Alem, 2008).

Depending upon the Baker Act patient's ability to pay, the patient is responsible for the payment of any hospital bill for involuntary placement under the Baker Act, however, if the patient is indigent, the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) is obligated to provide treatment at a receiving facility and HRS provides treatment for indigent Baker Act patients without any cost to the county.

The criminal/delinquency law and the Baker Act can be used simultaneously, unless there something in the criminal law that directly contradicts the Baker Act. In this case, law enforcement continues to have a responsibility to provide the transport of a person from any setting except a hospital (because of the federal EMTALA law) of a person under involuntary examination status to the nearest receiving facility (Bower, 2005).

While you may not want to accept children under the age of ...