Breed, state legislators push for California guardianship law reforms

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Mayor London Breed on Wednesday joined state lawmakers and a group of health professionals to call for two bills that would change California’s rules for keeping people with serious mental illness.

The bill’s sponsors say the two bills, Senate Bill 43 and Senate Bill 363, will modernize the state’s mental health system and help improve San Francisco’s child care programs, which many see as ineffective because people often suffer from behavioral or mental health problems. cycle through emergency departments and other short-term care settings where there are few places to get long-term care.

Highlighting the shortage of long-term mental health beds, the California Department of Public Hospitals said in October that it was 99 more than the contracted number of care beds.

“I hope these common-sense changes to an outdated law help make a significant difference for those fighting the crisis, whether they have a lawyer or not,” said Mayor Breed, who co-sponsored the bills under the bill. Coalition of mayors of large cities.

At a press conference on Wednesday, State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton, State Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco and others supporting the bills said reforms are badly needed as the state faces a shortage of mental health facilities.

Custody is for people who are severely disabled due to a mental health condition or other serious disability. Teresa Pasquini, a mental health reform activist, described the reforms as a civil rights issue and spoke of her son, who was diagnosed with severe mental illness as a teenager and cycled through prisons, institutions and streets before being placed under guardianship.

“He experienced all the bumps and breakdowns of the California mental health system,” she said. “But thanks to heroism and access to appropriate and medically necessary treatment, my Danny is now living safely and in recovery.”

SB 43 seeks to update California’s Lanterman-Petris-Short guardianship law by changing the criteria for determining whether someone is “severely disabled.” Changes will take into account the likelihood of physical and mental harm as a result of a mental or substance use disorder, as well as their ability to care for themselves.

SB 363 will create a dashboard to collect and display information about the availability of psychiatric and substance abuse beds in order to expedite treatment and reduce dependence on emergency departments or short hospital stays.

“We know California is in desperate need of beds,” Eggman said Wednesday. “This will at least give us an idea of ​​what kind of beds are actually available, but also that they are in short supply, [of beds] that we have available in the state.”

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