(April 24, 2013) A bill currently making its way through the Pennsylvania state legislature would make it easier to keep people in desperate need of psychiatric care hospitalized - people like Michael McDaniel.
Illustrating the need for SB 796, McDaniel's mother recently told their family's wrenching story to the Reading Eagle (“Mental health system fails families,” April 21).
Nina McDaniel said her son had made repeated threats against members of his family while suffering delusions from paranoid schizophrenia and refusing treatment. After he attempted to buy a pistol online and threatened his parents “I’ll blow your brains out,” she thought she had enough evidence to have him hospitalized. But under current Pennsylvania law, such threats and others do not warrant involuntary commitment. Michael was released hours after being held for a psychiatric evaluation.
Three weeks later, he walked into his grandmother’s bedroom and attacked her with a cane.
His grandmother survived the assault, but McDaniel remains hospitalized at Wernersville State Hospital - still another individual who had to commit a crime to get treatment. Nina McDaniel says “medications keep his head clear and that he wouldn’t have attacked his grandmother had he been taking them.”
People like Michael McDaniel deserve treatment before their symptoms drive them to criminal acts. In Pennsylvania, SB 796 could improve the chances they get it.
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