What's happening
Writing a plain-English summary… Track this bill to get it by email.
Why it matters
Albany, before your first meeting.
Every bill that moved yesterday, summarized in a sentence and ranked by impact. The Albany Scorecard follows on Sundays.
Free. Unsubscribe in one click. Want alerts on specific bills? Create an account.
Who cares
Headline styles
Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Substituted by A10824B
- Amended on third reading 7432a
- Advanced to third reading
- 2nd report cal.
- 1st report cal.471
- Referred to mental health and developmental disabilities
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Provides a mental hygiene legal service to certain patients or residents of residential healthcare facilities
Vetoed · Sponsor Michael Cusick
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
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 serious 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 serious mental illness and are receiving services for such illness.
Read the full memo (610 words)
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 seriously 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 (NBU'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 NBU were being deprived their legal protection. The article claimed that the NBUs 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 NBUs, however their continues a steady flow of seriously mentally ill individuals being transferred from OMH licensed psychiatric centers and hospital wards to nursing homes.
These seriously 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 seriously 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.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.