Virginia mental health reforms proposed

The first broad outlines for legislation to remedy state mental health system failings exposed by the Virginia Tech massacre call for a much greater focus on how the state identifies and treats people with psychiatric problems.

Republican House and Senate leaders on Thursday targeted three areas for the 2008 General Assembly to address, including requiring a mental health professional to attend all commitment hearings for their clients.

Seung-Hui Cho, who fatally shot 32 people April 16 before committing suicide in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, had been ruled a danger to himself in a court commitment hearing in 2005. But no representative of the local agency that provides mental health services, the Community Services Board, attended Cho's commitment hearing.

An eight-member panel that reviewed the shootings found in a report released last week that the failure to make sure the board received a copy of the court's commitment order "resulted in an absence of oversight for Cho's outpatient treatment."

Other issues that House Speaker William J. Howell and Senate Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch said legislation should address include clarifying the standard for involuntary commitment and opening more small "crisis stabilization units" statewide to handle patients in the most urgent need.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who commissioned the review panel, said last week that the most compelling need the report identified was substantial reforms to and investments in the state's lagging mental health system.

The GOP proposals "appear to closely track" recommendations made by the gubernatorial review panel's 147-page report, said Kaine spokesman Kevin Hall.

Neither the governor's proposals nor those of the House and Senate Republican leadership have been drafted into legislation or budget items, whose costs could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when the state already faces a projected $640 million shortfall.

Del. Brian J. Moran, leader of the House Democratic Caucus, found no fault with the Republicans' generalized recommendations.

"Reforming the state's mental health system is not a partisan issue," Moran said. "It's incumbent on the legislature to make sure something like the Virginia Tech tragedy never occurs again."