Mandatory Mental Health Screening

[ffemt8978]

Illinois Mandatory Mental Health Screening

This past spring, the Illinois General Assembly passed a new bill requiring compulsory mental health screening for children and pregnant women; it was signed into law by Governor Blagojevich. This program will require all pregnant women and children through the age of 18 be tested for mental health needs.

Now I know that this is not EMS related, per se, but I believe it to be an important issue. If mental health screening becomes mandatory, you just have to ask yourself what is next? Are we heading for a period where a patient is no longer able to refuse medical care because it is required by state law?

This law is just SOOOOO wrong, but I would like to hear everyone's opinions on it.

 

[rescuecpt]

I dont necessarily agree with this - that all children and pregnant women get screened... what if a pregnant woman is found to have a mental problem? Would the state force an abortion?

That aside, I think better mental health screening should occur for Volunteer Firefighters, EMTs, all school teachers, nurses, etc... not necessarily as a law, but something strongly encouraged for admission to an organization or employment. There was a volunteer firefighter in my area who set more than 10 fires, and they've implicated him in one that was fatal... perhaps if they had performed any sort of mental health screening they would have noticed some "high risk" indicators. Maybe not though.

 

[MMiz]

Don't even get me started.

Again, I'm all for mental health screening of emergency responders and those with authority, but screening huge populations like this doesn't seem like the best idea.

At what point have we as a society gone too far? I think we've reached that point.

 

[ffemt8978]

The wierd part of this law is that the Department of Education is placed in charge of the program for children. Somehow I feel that these test results will unofficially help determine what type of classes the child is placed in, resulting in a different education for each child.

 

[SafetyPro2]

Here's the link to the actual Public Act 93-0495 - Children's Mental Health Act of 2003. In reading through it, I don't see anything that requires compulsary screening for all children or anything at all about pregnant women. In fact, most of what it calls for is the development of plans to address specific issues, which is to be presented to the Governor on September 30, 2004.

The issues to be planned for does include a requirement for children under age 18 to undergo complusory screening, but only prior to "admission to an inpatient hospital for psychiatric services" and mainly for the purpose of determining if out-patient treatment is a viable option to admission. It also requires "incorporating social and emotional development into school learning standards", but doesn't say anything about compulsary screening for all students. I suppose such screenings could be enacted as part of that criteria, but I don't see that being mandated.

Also, I couldn't find anything anywhere in the text that makes any mention at all of pregnant women, only of children from birth through age 18.