Congresswoman Matsui Introduces Legislation to Strengthen Oversight and Penalties in Cases of Improper Dumping of Psychiatric Patients
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
CONTACT: JONELLE TRIMMER
(202) 225-7163
Congresswoman Matsui Introduces Legislation to Strengthen Oversight and Penalties in Cases of Improper Dumping of Psychiatric Patients
Legislation would strengthen patient protections and deter future cases of patient dumping
Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA) introduced legislation to protect patients and deter hospitals and psychiatric hospitals from improperly discharging psychiatric patients. H.R. 3128, The Protect Patients Act, would provide the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the authority to hold hospitals accountable through monetary penalties in particularly egregious cases of improper discharges.
"It is both irresponsible and inhumane to send individuals who are not fully aware of their surroundings to an unfamiliar city, without a treatment plan or doctor awaiting their arrival," said Congresswoman Matsui. "This legislation seeks to deter this activity and protect patients, by creating financial penalties for truly egregious cases."
In February, The Sacramento Bee reported that 48-year old James Flavy Coy Brown, a severe schizophrenic, who was a patient at the Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada, was placed on a bus and arbitrarily sent to Sacramento, California without arrangements for care, housing or medical treatment. After determining that this is a national problem, Congresswoman Matsui introduced the Protect Patients Act which would allow CMS to levy a penalty of up to $10,000 on those bad actors who dump patients without a discharge plan.
"The vast majority of the hospitals across the country handle psychiatric patients with the care and sensitivity they need and deserve. This legislation is not targeted at these facilities. The Protect Patients Act creates another tool to ensure the safety of patients is being protected by ensuring that hospitals that engage in atrocious examples of patient dumping are held accountable," added Congresswoman Matsui.
"So-called andlsquo;Greyhound therapy,' the appalling practice of giving individuals recovering from a serious psychiatric episode a bus ticket and a bag of psychotropic medications upon discharge from inpatient hospitals, should be prohibited everywhere in the United States. The bill introduced by Rep. Matsui helps us to pursue that objective," said Linda Rosenberg, Executive Director of the National Council for Behavioral Health (NCBH).
"Too often psychiatric patients across the country are abruptly discarded without a proper discharge, and without ensuring that there is a place for them to go. This is a problem that often goes unreported. The Protect Patients Act is a step toward ensuring that all patients are treated with the dignity they deserve and I am pleased that Congresswoman Matsui is taking a stand," said Rusty Selix, executive director at Mental Health America of California and the California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies.
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