EDITORIAL: Maintain focus on mental health

March 12--Last year, after state lawmakers approved a series of mental health-related reforms aimed at preventing the kind of systemic failures that led to the suicide of Sen. Creigh Deeds' son and wounding of the senator himself, confusion arose over how often, precisely, a new registry should be updated to show available psychiatric beds.

The law called for "real-time" updates, a sufficiently vague description, apparently, for officials charged with maintaining it.

So this year, state lawmakers amended the law to specify the registry would be updated "whenever there is a change in bed availability for the facility, board, authority, or provider or, if no change in bed availability has occurred, at least once daily."

It's a small clarification but an important one.

State mental health services workers released Gus Deeds from emergency custody in November 2013 after they said they were unable to find a bed in a facility that could accommodate him. But officials at nearby hospitals had space available, and the lack of a central registry that maintained that information -- along with communications errors by health services workers -- led to the disastrous release of an ill young man who posed a risk to himself and others.

About 12 hours later, Gus Deeds stabbed his father outside their family home in Bath County and then fatally shot himself. He was 24.

The registry, which has been operating for a year now, is an important tool for ensuring an effective safety net is available for people who need help. The extensions of emergency custody and temporary detention orders, both approved last year, provide more time for officials to be diligent in evaluations and efforts to secure necessary resources.

But legislators could've done far more if not for a lack of resolve to fix flaws in the system.

Deeds shepherded bills through the Senate to certify crisis-intervention specialists and licensed clinical supervisors; strengthen the skills of officials who conduct evaluations; and establish standards for community services boards and behavioral health authorities.

Those measures were drawn from recommendations in a state study commissioned by the legislature last year, and in fact drew strong bipartisan support in the Senate.

But each failed in the House of Delegates, where -- despite improving revenue figures that justified all sorts of adjustments -- lawmakers apparently balked at the meager costs. Worse, they quietly ratcheted down the poverty threshold for which uninsured, mentally ill Virginians could qualify for some emergency behavioral health care services.

More than 50 Virginians who enrolled this year could see the help stripped away next year, under the budget awaiting Gov. Terry McAuliffe's signature.

Deeds said he intends to work with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to effect some changes administratively. And he intends to return next year with proposals to maintain the momentum necessary to improve Virginia's mental health system. Clarifying the definition of real time was an important step that will ensure the effectiveness of the psychiatric bed registry. But that is just a part of a broader system still ripe for long-term reform, if only legislators in the House can muster the wherewithal to see it through.

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