(Mar. 7, 2016) By now, many of us are familiar with the tragic story of 3-year-old Ji’Aire Lee, who was found dead on a playground in Maryland after his mother pushed him on a swing for nearly two days.
His mother, Romechia Simms, had a history of psychiatric hospitalization and had stopped taking medication for schizophrenia just days before her son’s death.
A judge ruled last month that Simms was not criminally responsible for the death of her son. She will receive treatment for her mental illness with many conditions, including regular visits with mental-health professionals and submitting blood tests to prove that she is on medication.
The judge is to be lauded for allowing Simms to remain in the community under a treatment order rather than sending her to prison — where nearly one-quarter of those incarcerated suffer from a serious psychiatric disease. But it shouldn’t take the death of a child, or even one encounter with the criminal justice system, for someone with severe mental illness to receive proper treatment.
Maryland’s mental-health system doesn’t have a safety net in place to catch someone like Simms before a tragedy occurs. It is one of only five states without an assisted outpatient treatment law — a program that could have mandated that the mental-health system provide treatment and regular follow-ups for Simms.
Such programs are simple. The law requires the most vulnerable and severely ill patients — those who are most likely to end up homeless or the victim or perpetrator of a crime — to follow court-approved treatment plans as a condition of remaining in the community. The court orders also require mental-health providers to provide adequate monitoring of the patients and the services listed in the treatment plans.
In 2014, Maryland had the opportunity to authorize assisted outpatient treatment. With the support of mental-health advocacy groups and families, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene proposed legislation authorizing the program. But the administration decided to table discussion of it because of funding concerns — despite the proven cost savings associated with it.
Family members of people with severe mental illness are left helpless. They are forced to watch their loved ones stop taking medications and spiral into psychosis that can ruin their lives, threaten others and cost the state an extraordinary amount of money.
Simms, like many other people with severe, untreated mental illness, ended up in the criminal justice system. She is unusual only in that she will receive treatment instead of going behind bars. In Maryland, a person with severe mental illness is nearly three times more likely to become incarcerated than to receive treatment in a hospital.
If the state had moved forward with assisted outpatient treatment legislation, Simms might not have suffered the psychotic episode that resulted in the death of her child.
It is time for Maryland to dust off the health department’s proposal and move forward. Give the mental-health system the tools to intercede before another unimaginable, irrevocable tragedy occurs.
JOHN SNOOK
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TREATMENT ADVOCACY CENTER
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