State Hospital wants accused arsonist in jail -Rutland (VT) Herald

By Susan Smallheer

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Authorities from the Vermont State Hospital want Cheryle Potwin back in prison and out of one of their psychiatric beds.

Potwin, 49, of Sharon, has been in the State Hospital since July after a district judge ordered a fourth evaluation. Potwin claims she has at least nine different personalities and suffers from multiple personality disorder.

Potwin was arrested in September 2006 on charges that she set several fires in the Woodstock-Hartland area and she's a prime suspect in several arsons in New Hampshire as well. Potwin has been either in jail or in the state hospital since her arrest.

Since her arrest, Potwin has been evaluated by at least four psychiatrists or psychologists, each with a slightly different conclusion, but with most finding her competent to stand trial, but split sharply on whether she suffers from multiple personality disorder and whether she is faking her illness. She was not in court Monday for the hearing.

But an expert in multiple personality disorder, or as it is now known as dissociative identity disorder, most recently concluded that while she suffered from the rare mental illness, she was competent to stand trial.

Windsor County State's Attorney Robert Sand told District Judge Kathleen Manley that Dr. Richard Loewenstein of Sheppard Pratt Health Systems of Baltimore, who is a nationally recognized expert on dissociative identity disorder, had found she was able to assist her attorney in her defense and understood the charges against her.

Her attorney, Kevin Griffin of White River Junction, told Manley he wanted Potwin to stay at the State Hospital, rather than the state's women's prison, because of the better psychiatric care at the hospital.

Griffin said that Loewenstein, while finding her competent to stand trial, was "the most severely mentally ill person" he'd evaluated.

To send her back to prison might trigger her multiple personalities, or "alters," as the psychiatrists call them, her attorney said.

But Kristin Chandler, the assistant attorney general handling the case, said Potwin belongs back in prison and not taking up one of the "very valuable beds" at the State Hospital.

And Chandler disputed Griffin's characterization of Potwin's state of mind or behavior.

"She has no problems, she's a model patient," Chandler said.

Judge Manley gave the attorneys until Friday to file legal motions on the matter, and said she would make a decision early next week.

"I'm not ready to send her here or send her there," the judge said.

Manley noted that an involuntary hospitalization hearing was probably the next court hearing in Potwin's case. Such a hearing will be "long and arduous," the judge said.

After the Monday afternoon hearing, Sand said the Potwin case was "a fascinating and difficult case."

He said Loewenstein, who has a practice in Baltimore, had testified for Vermont prosecutors in the Hazard Campbell rape case several years ago.

He said Loewenstein's evaluation was not part of the public record at this point.

In the Woodstock case, Potwin was discovered inside the Kilcullen home by Rory Kilcullen, 23, who confronted Potwin and called police. Kilcullen was able to remember a portion of Potwin's car registration number.

Potwin is charged with attempted first-degree arson and burglary, since she allegedly broke into the Kilcullen home.

If convicted, she faces a 10-year sentence on the arson charge and a 25-year sentence on the burglary charge. Potwin is being held for lack of $50,000 bail.

Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
Read more!

Mentally ill overlooked for health care -Palm Beach (FL) Post

By Carolyn Susman

This is a horror story that just happens to fall on Halloween.

Some may think "horror" is a little strong, but anyone concerned about the state of the nation's severely mentally ill will agree that description is apt for the findings of a paper co-authored by a Florida Atlantic University professor, Dr. Charles Hennekens.

Hennekens, and Dr. John W. Newcomer, have put together in writing what separate studies have shown: That patients with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression lose an average of 25 years or more of life expectancy due - not to suicide - but to cardiovascular disease (heart attack) that isn't diagnosed or treated or even given the degree of preventive care that the average patient receives.

This isn't a question of prejudicial treatment, Hennekens says, but of doctors who are missing signs of disease, patients who are noncompliant when placed on medications, poor access to medical care for these patients, and even the antipsychotic drugs used to treat their illnesses.

"I'm not in favor of assessing blame, but in pointing out the problem," Hennekens says, when asked why there is such an under-diagnosis of heart disease among these patients.

"I think they're an under-served population and I'd like to call attention to this pressing clinical problem and get public attention for it."

Coupled with the fact that these mentally ill, he said, are fatter, smoke more, and are less physically active than the general population, the outlook isn't good unless care for them is changed.

"I don't think it's fair to blame it on drugs, doctors, or patients," says Hennekens, who formerly was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"It has to be a shared responsibility. It's a big mistake to place blame. This is a multifaceted problem."

He says he has gotten a positive reaction from both cardiologists and psychiatrists since the paper was published Oct. 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But when asked how realistic is his call for improved education among doctors and patients and a reallocation of resources to deal with this issue, he backs away.

"I'm an academic. My research brings problems to those involved with problem solving. I'm not qualified to say how realistic it is, because it depends on how seriously it's taken by those people."

Among the findings published:

* Patients with severe mental illness have nearly twice the incidence of diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and obesity as the general population.

* Patients with diabetes and severe mental illness are less likely than patients with diabetes and no mental illness to receive the acceptable standard of care.

* There is a crucial need for new approaches for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease in patients with severe mental illnesses.

* Research should be directed at finding antipsychotic medications with less adverse cardiovascular impact.

* If nothing changes, "avoidable premature mortality" from heart disease among the severely mentally ill "is likely to continue and increase in severity." Read more!

State to seek death penalty in retrial -Uniontown (PA) Herald-Standard

By Jennifer Harr

State prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a Georges Township man accused of killing two people in 1984.

As early as next week, Joseph Nara's could face a retrial in the deaths of his wife, DeLorean Churby, and mother-in-law, Virginia Ruth Churby, though with the recent filing, it is unlikely that the trial will occur so soon.

Nara, 56, of Waynesburg had his dual life sentences overturned earlier this year by a federal appellate court. The court essentially found that there was evidence that Nara was mentally ill when he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the women's deaths.

Although prosecutors have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, that will not stop the state Attorney General's office from trying the case as early as next week, according to Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, a spokesman at the office.

He said Tuesday that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling does not bar them from seeking the death penalty against Nara despite his earlier sentence of life imprisonment.

The case law, said Hagen-Frederiksen, indicates that once an appeal sets the conviction aside, "double jeopardy has not terminated, so that the life sentence imposed in connection with the initial conviction raises no double jeopardy bar to a death sentence on retrial."

Double jeopardy is the premise that a person cannot be tried for the same crime twice.

State prosecutors took over the case at the request of Fayette County District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon. Her father, also an attorney, had contact with Nara while she was working in his office, and Vernon wanted to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

The alleged killings happened after Nara's wife left him, and he found letters written between her and another man. The Attorney General's office also prosecuted the case in 1984 because the alleged other man was a state trooper.

That trooper has since retired, and so the case would have been tried by Vernon's office.

Nara fled to North Carolina after the shootings, but turned himself in to police after a short time, and entered the guilty pleas in June 1984.

After he was sentenced, Nara appealed through various channels. By 1999, Nara took his case to federal court in Pittsburgh. The case took several years to wind its way through the court system, but in 2005, a federal judge granted Nara's request to vacate the pleas.

State prosecutors appealed that decision to the federal 3rd Circuit Court, and in May, it upheld the lower court's determination that Nara's conviction should be vacated.

The appellate court based its decision in part on a 1990 hearing in Fayette County Court.

During that hearing, then-Judge William Franks found that Nara could withdraw his guilty pleas because his attorney presented evidence that Nara was probably "psychotic" when he pleaded guilty, and incapable of understanding what he was doing.

The doctor who testified before Franks indicated that Nara's condition "steadily worsened" after his wife left him, and left him "psychotic" and "out of touch with reality" when he pleaded guilty.

However, prosecutors appealed that finding, and the Superior Court reversed Franks' ruling because the judges believed the issue of competency had been legally waived.

Before the killings, the federal appeals court judges found that Nara was treated for a suicide attempt, and briefly committed for mental health issues. After he turned himself in, Nara was transferred from the county prison to Mayview State Hospital in Bridgeville to again deal with mental health issues.

He was transferred from Mayview back to prison four days later when he spoke of escaping.

After Nara was sentenced, he was put into the medical unit for mental health treatment, and in February 1985, he tried to kill himself in the prison hospital. Read more!

Rights - South Florida Daily Business Review

Lawsuit seeks to ban gassing of mentally ill inmates at maximum-security Florida prison

By: John Pacenti

Advocates for schizophrenic Jeremiah Thomas say he can’t control his behavior. He believes his 9-year-old daughter lives with him in his cell. He has eaten his feces. He has tried to cut off his genitals. When he bangs on his cell door, they say it’s just another manifestation of his mental illness.

Guards at Florida State Prison were told not to try to subdue Thomas with pepper spray, tear gas or Mace. His file noted he was impervious to such procedures. Nevertheless, Thomas was gassed — the terminology used at the prison — eight times during a 21-day period in the summer of 2000.

Thomas is one of 10 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections officials and employees that aims to stop the gassing of mentally ill inmates at the state’s maximum-security prison near Starke.

The lawsuit claims a violation of Eighth Amendment rights barring cruel and unusual punishment.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan in Jacksonville scheduled a hearing for Thursday on motions in the case.

Enclosed in his 9-by-7-foot cell, Thomas sometimes was gassed twice a day and was severely burned on his hands and torso, his attorneys say. The gas is released through a food flap using a fire extinguisher-like device.

“Mentally, a lot of them don’t know what is going on,” said Leon Fresco, a Miami attorney with Holland & Knight who is representing the inmates pro bono for the Florida Justice Institute in Miami and Florida Institutionalized Legal Services in Gainesville. “The inmates describe it as a harrowing experience. They all feel they are going to die. The intent of the gas is to create psychological trauma. It makes you feel like you are suffocating.”

Thomas said in a statement for the lawsuit that the gassings “would eat me up on the inside. It burn (sic) me real bad.”

The defendants — Corrections Secretary James McDonough, prison warden Randall Bryant and seven current or former corrections employees — have filed a motion for summary judgment to end the case.

They argue there was no long-term physical harm to the inmates, and the state has instituted policies and training to address the problem. Videotaping has been reinstated in some instances, and gassing is used only as a last resort, according to court documents filed by an attorney representing McDonough and Bryant in their official capacity.

The state’s motion for summary judgment claims a successful lawsuit would force the guards into an ill-suited diagnostic role, and they challenge the claim that the inmates were not acting out of their own volition.

“To my knowledge there is not a shred of evidence — except for maybe one case in 2000 — that the inmate was unable to understand the simple order to stop screaming and yelling and kicking their cell doors,” said attorney Peter Martin of Dennis Jackson Martin & Fontela in Tallahassee, who is representing McDonough and Bryant in their official capacity.

Martin noted the incidents of gassings at the prison that houses Florida’s death row dropped precipitously from a high of 610 in 2003 to 193 in 2006. There were 47 gassings in the first seven months of this year.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said.

Curt Massie The 2004 lawsuit claims the prisoners knew mentally ill inmates were not to be gassed but did it anyway. It also claims the inmates were not properly decontaminated in the shower afterward.

Photographs filed as exhibits in the case show burns on inmates. Plaintiff Curt Massie is shown with severe burns across much of his body. The skin on his back is ruby red and peeling.

The lawsuit captures a turbulent time at the prison when corrupt warden James V. Crosby Jr. was in charge. During Crosby’s service, death row inmate Frank Valdes was fatally beaten in a cell extraction after complaining about repeated prisoner abuse in 1999. Guards charged in Valdes’ death were acquitted, and the state settled a civil suit brought by the Valdes family for $737,500 in January.

In a cruel irony, Crosby ordered the increased use of gas to subdue unruly prisoners in lieu of cell extractions. He also discontinued a practice of videotaping the gassings.

George Shultz Jr. of Holland & Knight’s Jacksonville office is the lead trial attorney for the plaintiffs. He said documents show there were about three dozen gassings at the prison before Crosby’s edict. After Valdes’ death, the number went from 38 in 1999 to 240 in 2000.

“Inmates are the most vulnerable people. They are at the bottom of the hierarchy,” Fresco said. “Crosby was running a prison system that didn’t have any accountability.”

Crosby, who went on to become corrections secretary, is serving an eight-year federal prison term for taking kickbacks from a prison snack and soda vendor. His attorney, Ron Wasilenko of Gobelman Love Gavin Blazs Wasilenko in Jacksonville, had no comment.

Sara Norman, an attorney with the Prison Law Office, a prisoner advocacy firm in San Rafael, Calif., said the attorneys taking on Florida’s penal system are highly skilled, but succeeding in a lawsuit on behalf of prisoners is difficult.

Congress and the courts have set a high legal standard for prisoners to successfully sue by requiring proof of willful cruelty rather than negligence only, Norman said.

“There is what is called a subjective prong. It’s incredibly hard to show,” she said. “With use of force you can’t just say, ‘An officer beat me and shouldn’t have.’ You have to show the officer intended to harm.”

The prisoners are seeking damages, but the main goal of the lawsuit is to obtain an injunction to ban the gassing of mentally ill inmates.

Fresco said the policy is applied inconsistently, and corrections officials refuse to establish simple solutions, such as setting aside cells for mentally ill inmates with rubber padding to reduce the noise made by kicking the door.

Besides Thomas and Massie, plaintiffs include Michael McKinney, Sylvester Butler, Kelvin Frazier, Paul Echols, Charles Morgan, Antonio Ward, Reginald Williams and Eugene Ulrath.

They are in prison for a variety of crimes. McKinney is serving life for murder and other crimes. Thomas is in for second-degree murder and robbery and is set to be released in 2018. Butler is living in a halfway house after serving an eight-year sentence for trafficking in stolen goods.

The defendants include McDonough, Bryant and Crosby and current or former prison employees Bradley Carter, George Sapp, Allen Clark, Stacey Green and Oscar Shipley. Green resigned after he was investigated for allegedly selling anabolic steroids to other guards.

“Every defendant in this case has either personally gassed inmates maliciously or sadistically, or has created, implemented, or maintained policies permitting gassing of mentally inmates for disciplinary purposes rather than as a last resort,” the suit alleges.

In one instance involving Massie, Green retaliated against the inmate for complaining to a nurse about not receiving his medication, the lawsuit said. The complaint said Massie made a funny face at the nurse.

“Massie was sitting on his bunk dressed only in his boxer shorts when Green used chemical agents on him even though he was neither yelling or banging on his cell,” the suit states. Green emptied the canister against regulations and then returned a few minutes later and pumped Mace into Massie’s cell.

Green later admitted to falsifying reports about the incident. Massie suffered second-degree burns. Green’s attorney in the civil case, Dixon Bridgers at Vernis and Bowling in Jacksonville, could not be reached for comment before deadline.

The lawsuit also alleges a vicious cycle in which unstable mentally ill inmates at Florida State Prison are shipped to an in-patient center down the road at Union Correctional Institute in Raiford, stabilized and sent back.

“Thomas was sent back at 11 o’clock at night, and they gassed him at 1 in the morning. He hadn’t been there but a couple of hours,” Shultz said. Documents show guards had noted Thomas was impervious to disciplinary methods.

Dr. Ogla Infante, a Union psychologist who treated Thomas in 2003, said Florida State Prison is not the right place to house Thomas, who could easily revert to a fractured state of mind.

“This inmate took me six — close to six months to stabilize,” she said. “I would hate to see him decompensate because it would take forever to bring him back.” Read more!

Educating minorities on mental-health issues -Indianapolis Star

By RoNeisha Mullen

If undiagnosed and untreated, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or bipolar disorder can be devastating, particularly for black adolescents.

If ADHD isn't treated before age 15, those children are three times more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, said Dr. William Bailey Jones, a local psychiatrist. And even though most people with bipolar disorder aren't diagnosed until their late 20s, symptoms often are noticeable by the teens, Jones said.

"Fifty percent of all incarcerated males meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD and 80 percent of all high-school dropouts are ADHD," he said.

As many as one of five American children have ADHD, a genetic disorder prevalent in school-aged children that creates problems with attentiveness, over-activity, impulsivity, or a combination of all three behavioral problems.

Jones addressed that issue and the inefficient diagnosis methods and treatments for bipolar disorder in black children at an April forum conducted by the Indiana Chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists. More than 100 people attended.

After years of the organization's fluctuating membership, Randal Horton, a psychologist and president of the local chapter, said it is on the rebound and needed more than ever.

Horton said the chapter, with about 25 members, meets about every six weeks in members' homes and offices.

"Our organization helps educate the minority community about mental health issues," Horton said. "The increase of illnesses such as ADHD and bipolar disorder among black youths is a problem that needs to be addressed."

The forum, held in conjunction with Black Mental Health Month, is one of two annual events sponsored by the chapter. The other is a reception in the fall to introduce minority psychology students to working psychologists.
The reception is a good networking opportunity for black college students studying psychology, Horton said.

For some, the result is a mentoring program that "pairs a psychologist with these students based on the student's professional interest," Horton said. Such mentors can help students with their theses and dissertations and provide referrals and research opportunities.

Indianapolis resident Martha Davis, who is being mentored through the program, said her experience has been positive. She is studying at the University of Indianapolis to be a clinical psychologist.

"It's through the mentorship that I was able to secure my practicum with Dr. June," Davis said of Pamela June, a behavioral specialist for Pike Township schools and treasurer of the black psychologist association's Indiana chapter. "If it wasn't for networking through the association, I'm not sure I would have had this opportunity."

A former teacher of 30 years, Davis said a degree in clinical psychology will allow her to meet more specific clinical needs of children -- especially those who need specialized remediation.

"As a child psychologist, I feel like I could make more of an impact one-on-one with my students," she said.

One of the problems with bipolar disorder, Horton said, is that few guidelines exist to treat the condition in children. Instead, psychologists and doctors try to apply adult standards and adult drugs to youths "with inconsistent and potentially devastating results," he said.

June noted that treatment of such mental illnesses as ADHD and bipolar disorder should include more than medication.

"We don't just look at giving kids' medication and that being the end all," June said. "We design a behavior plan that includes changes of environment. We teach them how to behave, how to manage their behavior, and let them know what we expect from them."

Jones urges parents to have their children evaluated and to seek treatment early.
"ADHD does not affect intellect. It just interferes with the ability to apply that intellect in a God-given way," Jones said. "With an entire team (parents, teachers and doctors) working together, our children with ADHD can do very well."
Read more!

Georgia's mental hospitals bear dauntingchallenges - Atlanta Journal Constitution

By ALAN JUDD, ANDY MILLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Milledgeville — Georgia's state mental hospitals have operated at an average annual budget deficit of $11 million for eight years, contributing to the understaffing that has plagued the facilities, a state official said Tuesday.

"If you have to offset a deficit, you slow down your hiring or don't fill positions,'' Gwen Skinner, director of the state's mental health division, told Gov. Sonny Perdue's mental health commission.

At the seven state-run hospitals, Skinner said, 39 percent of registered nurses' positions were vacant in September, with an annual turnover figure of almost one in three.

"This is a critical, critical issue for us," she said.

In her presentation to the commission, meeting at Central State Hospital, Skinner went into greater detail than ever before in acknowledging problems with underfunding, understaffing and overcrowding in the facilities.

Those problems were the subject of a series of articles this year in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailing questionable deaths and abuse in the state hospitals. The newspaper reported that, from 2002 through 2006, at least 115 state hospital patients died under suspicious circumstances. In another 194 cases, hospital workers physically or sexually abused patients, the newspaper found in its series, "A Hidden Shame.''

Perdue created the study commission after vetoing a General Assembly resolution forming a similar panel, saying lawmakers had excluded executive branch officials as members. The Perdue panel includes representatives from the departments of Corrections, Community Health, and Human Resources, which runs the hospitals.

At Tuesday's meeting, the commission's second, Skinner used newly compiled statistics to show the challenges ahead.

The hospitals typically have operated with occupancy rates in adult psychiatric units of more than 100 percent since March 2005, Skinner said. The optimal figure is 85 percent, she said.

Georgia is churning patients out of its hospitals at a rapid rate.

The typical length of a stay is six days for adult mental health patients, with more than one-third discharged in less than 72 hours.

Patients at Georgia's hospitals are twice as likely to return within 30 days of discharge as the national average.

The state's figures drew pointed questions from commission members.

"How good is the care we're providing?'' asked Dr. Charles Nemeroff, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine.

"This commission came together because of a crisis. It could be a heckuva lot better than what it is now.''

Nemeroff said after the hearing, "You can't really provide adequate care for people with a major psychiatric illness in three or four days in a hospital.''

Nemeroff and other commission members also targeted the lack of mental health services available in the community for discharged patients.

Angela Hicks-Hill, executive director of a community service board in the Milledgeville region, told the panel that funding problems have forced her agency to reduce mental health services, including those for children.

"Three years ago, we had programs in four of six counties,'' she said. "Now we are in just two [counties].''

Mental health advocates reiterated their call for an independent review of hospital deaths and allegations of abuse, and for an ombudsman's office.

Sen. Greg Goggans (R-Douglas), a commission member, said after the hearing that he was encouraged by the panel's discussion. "We've got a long way to go,'' he said. "But we understand our system is broken.''

"I think [the commission] will make a huge difference in the lives of these people.'' Read more!

The person with mental illness: bearing God’s image - Archdiocese of Denver

By Rev. Richard Gill, L.C.

Pope John Paul II wrote: “Whoever suffers from mental illness ‘always’ bears God’s image and likeness in themselves, as does every human being. In addition, they ‘always’ have the inalienable right not only to be considered as an image of God and therefore a person, but also to be treated as such.”

In recent decades, the world has grown much more effective in mobilizing against major health threats such as AIDS, heart disease, cancer and the diseases whose statistics frighten us with their devastating impact on humanity. It is relatively easy to raise awareness of such threats and marshal human and financial resources to combat them. In the area of mental health, however, the situation is quite different.

Incidence of mental illness
It has been estimated that worldwide, as many as 500 million people are affected by some sort of mental illness. It is also said that the United States has the highest rate of mental illness of all the advanced nations: one in four adult Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Yet there is relatively little public awareness of the scope of the problem. And tragically, the stereotypes and stigma which are so often attached to mental illness help to create a culture where those who are affected are falsely seen as helpless victims or objects of charity.

Mental illness and our culture
Without addressing in any great detail the range of medical causes and treatments of mental illness or milder forms of mental or emotional problems, it would be helpful to reflect on the impact of a culture of violence and a culture of materialism. Causes of mental illness vary widely, from inherited chemical imbalances responsible for the development of such illnesses as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, to brain disease, to causes that are more immediately under our control. These man-made causes include, in many areas of the world, the spread of terrorism, the very purpose of which is to inflict widespread mental and emotional suffering. War, with its related atrocities and crimes, can bring out the worst aspects of our nature.

Additional challenges to mental health arise from the general state of culture, the weakening of moral standards, and trends within the culture that work against the true goods of the human person. For many, especially the vulnerable, phenomena such as hedonism and materialism, all too common in advanced societies, can foster exaggerated hopes of pleasure and reward and distorted notions of what constitutes success. Unrealizable hopes leave in their wake people who are severely discouraged and exasperated. Our increasingly technocratic and production-oriented culture tends to neglect the goods of the spirit, the things that make life more properly “human.” Human values are defined more in terms of a “culture of having” rather than a “culture of being.”

Our response to people with mental illness
In a society that judges a person on the value of what he produces, the mentally ill person is easily seen merely as a burden on society. As Christians, then, we are called unceasingly to affirm their dignity as human beings made in the image and likeness of God and to recognize their value to the community.

In what ways do mentally ill persons faithfully reflect the image of God? In an address to health care workers in February 2006, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, observed that “the mentally ill person resembles our Lord on the cross; and since the cross is the only way to resurrection, the mentally ill person … is worthier and reaches such a level of excellence because of the magnitude of his love and the suffering he endures.”

The dedication of so many individuals at work in the field of mental health points us to the dignity of people with mental illness. Often they work amid many difficulties, and it can be challenging to recognize the human dignity of the persons they serve. Caregivers for people with mental illness need a formation of the heart, because they are dealing with human beings who need to be treated at every moment in accord with their God-given dignity. Mental health care workers with a deeply Christian understanding of the redemptive value of suffering will go beyond mere human sympathy to authentic solidarity in suffering, a bond between persons rooted in love.

In short, mental health care workers must have a formation that gives them an authentically Christian understanding of the person, made in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by Jesus Christ. A formation that gives them a proper understanding of the person’s nature and destiny will lead them to care for the person as a brother or sister, and to seek as much as possible to restore the person’s interior freedom and the capacity to orient his life toward the truth of his existence.

Society in general also has an obligation to foster a serene, balanced way of life in stable families, a workplace promoting true human goods and authentic growth of individuals, a solid consensus on clear moral standards by which we will live together, and real objectivity about behaviors which are detrimental to the health of the culture.

And finally, the Church community itself has a great opportunity and responsibility to recognize and witness to the uniqueness of each member. The parish community must create that counter-cultural environment, in which all people can claim an equal place and contribute through presence and action.

What can you do?
• Understand and show others that the rehabilitation of mentally ill persons is a duty of all society, with special preference for those in greatest need.
• Welcome all persons with disabilities into the parish community and embrace successful parish-based programs.
• Promote social and physical environments that enhance human relations and create for mentally ill persons a sense of belonging to a community.
• Foster the healthy development of children, including their mental functioning.
• Fight against mentalities of moral relativism, consumerism, sexual license and instant gratification.
• Share the Word of God with persons with mental illness, as their mental and physical condition allows it.

Rev. Richard Gill, L.C., was the founding president of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Va. He is director of Our Lady of Mount Kisco Family and Retreat Center in Mount Kisco, N.Y. The full-length version of this article is posted at www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/Gill.pdf.
Read more!

“Manhunt 2:” Most Violent Game Yet? - CBS

Video report here.

Oct. 30, 2007(CBS) Just in time for Halloween comes one of the scariest video games ever seen.

The objective: a mental patient tries to escape from a bizarre insane asylum using everything from a sickle to rip out a character’s skull to a club to attack a police officer, CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports.

As Scott Steinberg, a video game reviewer and author, demonstrated for CBS News, the experience is even more intense when it's played on Nintendo’s Wii, which gets players to act out the violence.

“We’re going to lure them into the open and then chop them up,” Steinberg explained while playing.

"The Wii has motion-sensing controls, and therefore to stab you're gonna mimic a stabbing motion, to swing a sledgehammer or a shovel you would do the same. Unfortunately it's probably not something you would want to have your kids get much practice on," Steinberg said.

That has parents' groups outraged, worried it will be played by teens and younger children.

"It is some of the most horrific, senselessly violent stuff you've ever seen," James Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, said.

CBS News invited Dr. Christopher Lucas, a child psychiatrist at New York University, to watch the game being played.

Sieberg asked him if this is a cause for worry for parents.

“I think we don't know at the moment, but I think this is the sort of game that is most likely to have an effect,” he said. “Games that actually have players act out things in a physical way, are more likely to have one.”

Researchers have not found a direct scientific link between playing violent video games and carrying out those acts in real life. But some studies have shown children who play certain video games become more aggressive and could become desensitized to violence.

The entertainment software rating board has rated "Manhunt 2" "M" for “mature,” meaning no one under 17 should be allowed to play or buy it. It’s made by the same company - Rockstar Games - that created the controversial and popular “Grand Theft Auto” titles.

What surprised industy watchers is that Nintendo, maker of the Wii, has allowed "Manhunt 2" to be played on its system. Nintendo has been known for its kid-friendly games, but now it will have an edgier reputation that may be good for business.

In a statement, Nintendo told CBS News: “Just as with movies, television, and books, different video games appeal to - and are appropriate for - different audiences."

Sieberg took "Manhunt 2" to a local gaming center and let three 20-something-year-old gamers get their hands on it. They enjoy playing, but even these hard-core gamers recoiled at the violent imagery.

“The game looks like they made it like this just to make it controversial, just to bring something up, because there's no reason for the amount of, the level of violence in the game,” said Jackie Waldman.

“This definitely takes the cake as probably the most violent thing I’ve played,” another player, Chris DeMaida, said. Read more!

U.S. Supreme court stays execution in a sign of a broader halt - International Herald-Tribune

By Linda Greenhouse

WASHINGTON: Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring.

The vote was not immediately announced but there were two dissenters, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito Jr.. Neither the majority nor the dissenters gave reasons for their positions. The stay will remain in effect until the full court reviews an appeal filed on Monday by lawyers for the inmate, Earl W. Berry, who is on death row for having killed a woman 20 years ago.

While there is no schedule for that review, it almost surely will not take place until the court decides the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, which will be argued in January.

The issue in that case is not the constitutionality of lethal injection as such, but rather a more procedural question: how judges should evaluate claims that the particular combination of drugs used to bring about death causes suffering that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Even without a written opinion, the Supreme Court's action Tuesday night clarified a situation that had become increasingly confusing as state courts and the lower federal courts, without further guidance from the justices, wrestled with claims from a growing number of death-row inmates that their imminent executions should be put on hold.

Of these inmates, Berry had perhaps the weakest case. He had run through many appeals in the 19 years since he was sentenced to death, but had not challenged the method of execution until recent days. His federal court lawsuit on which the justices acted was not filed until Oct. 18. The Federal District Court in Jackson, Mississippi, dismissed it as untimely on Oct. 24 in a ruling that the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed last Friday.

The appeals court said that, under its own precedent, a late-filed challenge to a method of execution warranted automatic dismissal. The pending Supreme Court case was irrelevant to its determination, the appeals court said, adding that if the justices had a different view of the matter, they should say so.

David Voisin, one of Berry's lawyers, said he had not yet read the order but felt that the court's decision to issue a stay made would "put everyone on the same page" on the issue of lethal injections.

"I think it's a positive sign that as long as this issue is under consideration the court is going to hold executions," Voisin said.

Berry was condemned for abducting and killing Mary Bounds, 56, as she was leaving her church in Houston, Mississippi, on Nov. 29, 1987. Berry, who had been drinking heavily, drove the victim to the edge of a remote field intending to rape her, prosecutors said.

Then he decided not to rape he, but beat her with his fists. Afterward, Berry, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs more than 250 pounds, carried his victim into a patch of woods, where she was found dead of head injuries a few days later. The trail soon led to Berry, who was convicted in Chickasaw County Circuit Court in March 1988.

Berry was a troubled young man who twice tried to kill himself by swallowing razor blades, according to evidence introduced in his case over the years. He has been treated for mental illness, and doctors have rated his intelligence as well below average.

He spent time in prison for assault, larceny, burglary and other relatively minor crimes before the murder. Since then, he has had a good record in prison, state authorities say.

Brenda Goodman contributed reporting from Atlanta and David Stout from Washington . Read more!

Psychologist says teacher in student sex caseis bipolar - Associated Press

October 30, 2007

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - A psychologist says a former Lawrence High School teacher who pleaded guilty to having sex with a male student has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Testifying in Meredith Kane's sentencing hearing yesterday, Dr. Bruce Cappo said the condition inhibited her judgment. The hearing continues in December, and Kane is expected to testify.

According to testimony, the victim -- now 16 -- also suffers from the disorder.

Cappo said Kane saw herself as someone who could help a student who also was having severe problems.

Kane and the youth had a consensual sexual relationship that began in August 2006 and continued until officials discovered it in March.

She pleaded guilty July 2nd to one felony count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. In August Kane was ordered back to jail after prosecutors alleged she was still having contact with the boy.

Information from: Lawrence Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com

Read more!

Guides on Sharing Information Released - The Washington Post

By Maria Glod
October 31, 2007

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings yesterday released what she called "user-friendly" guidelines to help educators and parents interpret federal privacy laws in an initiative prompted by the mass shooting at Virginia Tech.

Concerns about properly balancing privacy and safety concerns have been on the minds of educators nationwide since the April 16 massacre. A panel appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) found that "widespread confusion" about privacy restrictions led to communications lapses among officials who dealt with mentally ill student Seung Hui Cho before he shot and killed 33 people, including himself.

Spellings appeared with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez at Mount Vernon High School in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County for a presentation on school safety.

The Virginia Tech shooting has sparked many efforts to tighten school security, improve mental health services and create systems to alert students of danger. Spellings said schools also have asked for guidance on what information can be shared among government agencies and parents under the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

"People often thought that information couldn't be shared when, in fact, it could be," Spellings said. She said the guidelines help explain "the rules of the road as we share information about students."

The Education Department released three brochures on the law: one for K-12 educators, one for colleges and one for parents. They will be sent to schools, school boards and education associations.

Lawmakers are also considering revising the privacy law. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) has introduced legislation to allow school officials to contact parents if a student is considered suicidal or a threat to attack someone. The law already allows officials to share information with parents or other agencies if there is a health or safety emergency, but Murphy contends that the language is vague.

Spellings said that before any changes are made, officials and educators should understand current law.

Kaine's panel found that at Virginia Tech, officials and others sometimes wrongly believed that educational or medical privacy laws prevented them from sharing information. The panel found, for instance, that police could have informed Cho's parents when female students complained about his behavior. The report also noted that the law applies only to records, and that professors or administrators who notice a student acting strangely can share that information with police and parents.

Lawrence K. Pettit, former president of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, recently completed a report on the shootings for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities that summarizes the panel findings. He is advising university presidents to work with state attorneys general to better understand the intersection of federal educational and medical privacy laws, as well as state restrictions.

"It's become pretty complicated, and I think it's incredibly important that we come to some understanding on how to interpret these laws, and how student affairs officials and faculty and others can proceed when they suspect there's a problem," Pettit said. "What we are trying to do is get all the value we can out of hindsight." Read more!

An autism activist who gets noticed -Chicago Tribune

By Julie Deardorff
October 31, 2007

Actress and comedian Jenny McCarthy was working on her latest book one Sunday when her 4-year-old son wanted to talk. He was so chatty — and distracting — that McCarthy finally said, "Evan, can you please just stop talking for a whole five minutes today?"

Then she covered her mouth with her hand. "Wow. Flash back in time and think about how I had wished and prayed to say that to my kid," she wrote in her best-selling memoir, "Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism" (Dutton $23.95). "I got down on my knees and said, 'No, Evan, Mamma made a mistake. You can talk and talk and talk and talk as much as you want, OK?' "

It's a moment most parents of children with autism only dream about.

But McCarthy's current mission in life — and the impetus behind her fourth book — is to use her famously big mouth to spread an unusual message: There is hope. Autistic children can recover.

"It's kind of like trying to shift the planet without causing a frenzy," said McCarthy, a former Playboy Playmate of the Year who is now a national spokeswoman for Talk About Curing Autism (TACA). "I'm really coming out on my own and saying things that no one has been able to say: Autism is treatable."

Not everyone agrees, which is part of what makes McCarthy's current media blitz so controversial. But Evan, who was diagnosed with autism after a series of seizures at age 3 — something McCarthy believes was triggered by vaccines — is now a typical and communicative 5-year-old who makes eye contact and no longer flaps his arms.

Though he's not completely "cured," McCarthy credits much of his turnaround to alternative "biomedical" interventions that include nutritional changes, detoxification therapies, gastrointestinal treatments and dietary supplements on top of intense behavioral and speech therapy.

When McCarthy removed wheat gluten and casein (found in dairy) from Evan's diet, she said he doubled his language and regained eye contact within two weeks. After treating his yeast overgrowth using antifungal medication, "his social development was back on," she said.

Although these treatments don't produce changes in every child, they're considered normal protocol by the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) project, which brings together researchers and parents for biannual conferences. DAN! (autism.com) also provides contacts for the approximately 600 doctors in the United States who use complementary and alternative therapies to treat autism.

But biological interventions aren't recommended by mainstream pediatricians, who often are the first point of contact for parents concerned with their child's development.

Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes the use of nutritional approaches to treat autism-spectrum disorders in a new clinical report to be released next week, it won't support or refute them until more scientific evidence is available. Many parents, however, believe there is everything to gain and little to lose.

McCarthy wasn't about to wait for evidence-based medicine; she felt she had a limited window of time to pull her son back into this world. After writing her book, she was floored by the number of parents who shared her experience.

"Jenny's story is my story, almost word for word," said Aurora's Jill Konczak, whose 6-year-old son, Kurt, is on the autistic spectrum, yet doctors never suggested removing milk from his diet. "(My) poor little boy literally went through the same withdrawal a crack addict would go through," she said. But "we reached huge milestones with that simple change."

McCarthy's impact on the autism community, meanwhile, has been so dramatic that some are referring to this period as "After Jenny." It's not just that she is voicing the same thing parents have been saying for years ("We vaccinated our babies and something happened") on high-profile programs such as "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Larry King Live."

"I want to be these women's voices," she said. "When I was 20, I had a feeling I'd be an activist, but I always thought, 'Please, God, don't let it be breast cancer.' Now I can't tell you how much I wish it was breast cancer."
Read more!

Autistic prodigy speaks at LCCC -Elyria (OH) Chronicle Telegram

By Shawn Foucher

ELYRIA — To enter Daniel Tammet’s mind is to enter a world where the number “333” looks like a lumpy glob of oatmeal or porridge.

Tammet’s 29-year-old mind is that of an acquired savant, a mind that possesses limitless talent for calculations and boundless capacity for learning.

For Tammet, it comes with a strange price: The things that make up human experience — the numbers, the words, the people — are transformed in his mind into shapes, textures and colors.

The number “11,” he says, looks beautiful.

The number “6” … dark, tiny and cold.

Tammet, of England, was a guest speaker at Lorain County Community College’s “Meeting Great Minds” series on Monday, where roughly 200 people showed up to learn more about this person that the world simply calls “The Pi Guy.”

“Numbers were my friends — they were the things I played with,” Tammet said, recalling his lonely childhood despite being one of nine children.

An acquired savant — think Dustin Hoffman in “Rainman” — Tammet has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a minor form of autism characterized by social detachment from other people. As a child, he suffered seizures that scientists suspect may have contributed to his remarkable abilities, which include memorizing vast stores of information in short periods of time.

His international claim to fame came just a few years ago when, for International Pi Day, he memorized what most people know as pi — 3.14 — to more than 22,500 decimal places. The number can continue infinitely.

“Like someone gorging on chocolates, I gorged on numbers,” he said of the feat, which was performed in front of Albert Einstein’s blackboard in a museum. “It took me a long time to get there — over 22,500 numbers, in fact.”

In short, his childhood was marked by severe isolation from other children, and he found solace in numbers and things of structure: LEGO blocks, buildings blocks, sand and bricks.

“They reminded me of how numbers can be used in your mind — they could be manipulated into any combination,” Tammet said.

As he grew into his teenage years, however, Tammet said he began recognizing his desire but complete inability to interact with other humans and understand intangible, abstract emotions like love.

His achievements on that front — learning to love, laugh, cry and convey all the emotions that come so naturally to regular folks — proved no small feat.

Tammet said he learned to associate the textures, shapes and colors of numbers with actual emotions: When a person said they were sad, he’d think of the number 6 to gain some perspective on their state of mind.

“I’d at least get some sensation of what it meant to be sad,” he said.

His journey to become more human, in a sense, is what makes him so remarkable.

Tammet said neuroscientists have valued him for his keen ability to describe precisely how his mind is processing his higher-level thoughts and calculations, since most acquired savants have remarkable abilities but aren’t able to describe how their thoughts are processed.

Tammet can describe those thoughts, even turning them into drawings and paintings.

What’s more, his capacity for understanding human emotion and the way human beings interact, think, learn and reason is astounding.

He speaks with a thick British accent, and his speech is fast, but also methodic and smooth — hypnotic, to be sure. The crowd of listeners at LCCC’s Stocker Center on Monday were either transfixed by his mesmerizing voice or simply touched by his unbelievable story.

Tammet’s journey to unravel the mysteries of life has pushed him to learn seven languages — including learning to speak Icelandic in just seven days — and meet with some of the 50 other acquired savants who are known to exist worldwide.

Languages, he said, allow you to “inhabit another world.”

“I liked this idea very much,” Tammet said. “That in my mind, I’m able to inhabit other worlds.”

He’s turned down job offers from people trying to get him to predict trends or shifts in the stock market — likely a lucrative career — and instead focuses on teaching people how to speak new languages through his own Web site, www.optimnem.co.uk.

Through it all, he says his quest to understand life’s mysteries has brought him full circle, with one mystery leading to another.

But his ability to overcome his obstacles — the social introversion and inability to connect with human emotion — has allowed him to be more a part of the human experience.

Like learning about love.

“Love makes you realize the value of every human life,” Tammet said. “It’s this common thread that connects us all."

--------------------

In the mind of a savant:
• Daniel Tammet associates people with colors and numbers. He doesn’t necessarily remember names, but remembers details about a person — their buttons, pins or other items.
• He loves prime numbers and children’s books, such as “The Little Prince,” because it taught him to identify what it means to be an outsider, and even taught him a few things about human emotion.
• He offered this quote about love from the book “The Little Prince”: “Love is when you look into a sea of a million faces and you see only one.”
• Whatever feeling he gets from a person, he associates them with a number that matches that feeling. George Bush, for instance, he associates with the number 6: “dark, tiny and cold.”


Contact Shawn Foucher at 653-6255 or sfoucher@chroniclet.com. Read more!

Coping with disabilities others can’t see -Binghamton (NY) University Pipe Dream

By Alana Casanova-Burgess, Editor in Chief
October 30, 2007

When Barbara Jean Fairbairn started as the first full time director of Binghamton University’s Services for Students with Disabilities in 1977, there were 18 students who sought help from her office.

Today, there are about 300.

And while 30 years ago most of the disabilities were physical, Fairbairn estimates that as many as two-thirds of today’s disabled students at BU are coping with learning disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, autism and attention deficit disorders.

These disabilities — sometimes called “invisible disabilities” — cannot be easily detected by their peers, and coping academically can often be more difficult for students who process the material differently.

ASKING FOR HELP

SSD has two foci to help students, said Bethany Beecher, the learning disabilities specialist. They offer classroom accommodations, like extra test time and note taking. They also offer workshops and support services to build organization, studying and time management skills to help students cope with their disabilities.

Dr. Linda Tessler, a licensed psychologist who advocates for awareness about learning disabilities, encourages students to thoroughly understand their conditions and discuss them with professors.

“You never want to appear like you’re using your disability as an excuse,” Tessler said. “People resent that, and they should.”

Faculty are understanding, Fairbairn said, and at times even refer students they see struggling to SSD. Professors also work to keep the student and their disability confidential from the rest of the class.

Fairbairn’s office arranges for accommodations like note takers. The office hires about 90 note takers every semester, a different one for every class a student needs.

They also provide specialized software and are working on manually recording.

“We’re not creating differential standards, we’re just creating equal access,” Fairbairn said. “Some students may need books on tape because they have difficulty with the visual reading, not necessarily because of a vision impairment, but visual processing. But they can understand it fine if they’re hearing it.”

This semester has been the most difficult, Fairbairn said, as more students need taped book services — a labor intensive process that requires permission from a publisher and a signed agreement of use.

First, Beecher said, SSD takes books from students and removes their bindings. The pages are then fed through a high speed scanner. SSD staff then edit the work so that it reads properly.

“For some of the students, if the word is just slightly off from what its supposed to be, it’s going to throw off the whole context of the sentence and not make any sense to them,” Beecher said.

The recordings and the newly-bound books are given back to students.

New York State law requires that publishers provide textbooks to disability offices in alternative electronic formats if they are available, Beecher said. But the law does not cover many of the books covered in literature classes, and the software publishers have is often in formats that cannot be reproduced or converted.

“We have seen a huge increase in that service need, and the labor that it takes … is very manually intense, and staff intense,” Fairbairn said.

But for some students, books on tape are simply not helpful.

Michael, who graduated in May 2007, has Central Auditory Processing Disorder and hyperlexia. The unusual combination means he has difficulty processing what is said, “like a slow hard drive on a computer,” and also anticipates words in reading, a condition nearly the opposite of dyslexia.

“It’s like your mind plays tricks on you,” Michael said. “You hear something and it’s like free association until you get on so many tangents you don’t follow what the professor is saying.”

While Michael did get note takers through SSD, books on tape would bore him, so he began to use other techniques.

“When I read a novel or a play, I visualize it,” he said. “If my strengths are to visualize it. I direct a movie in my head.”

To keep track of his classwork as well as his extracurricular activities, Michael has used a notebook to track what he was doing in class and in his extracurriculars.

“The little details get lost in my head,” he said. “After a while I realized, you know what, there’s no shame in writing it down.”

GET SUPPORT

Tessler also recommends that students use a notebook — but a different kind.

Setting and tracking goals in a notebook is a way for students to monitor success and progress, she said.

“Schools do a lot of good work, but there’s an internal maintenance that they [students with disabilities] have to do that nobody else can do,” Tessler said. “It’s important to notice what they have accomplished.”

It’s essential to set goals that are within your control, she noted. Grades are not healthy milestones because they are up to an instructor, but goals of time management and studying are.

“Grades are going to come and you’re going to have self-respect,” she said.

Tessler, who is a member of the American Psychological Association, the International Dyslexia Association and the Learning Disabilities Association of America, was not diagnosed as dyslexic until she was 33 years old.

Growing up there was very little understanding about learning disabilities and even fewer accommodations for her.

Goals and pacing are so important because they boost self-esteem, she said.

“We all say things to ourselves that are crueler than anything you could ever say to yourself,” Tessler said. “Clean up that conversation.” Read more!

Sparing Berry would be cruel, unusual -Hattiesburg (MS) American

Ddrifter had been treated for paranoid schizophrenia.

Opinion:

It has been 20 years since Earl Wesley Berry snuffed out Mary Bounds' life. For 20 years he has been on death row, fighting the state's right to put him to death.

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in and delays it, his execution will be carried out at 6 p.m. today at the state penitentiary at Parchman.

Much of Berry's story has dealt with efforts to save him. The other side of the story - Bounds' family - has received much less notice.

They are the ones who have had to live with the gruesome killing of Bounds by Berry after she left church in Chickasaw County on Nov. 29, 1987. They are the ones who have sat through his trial and listened to his appeals as they wound from the state Supreme Court to federal courts in Greenville and New Orleans.

They are the ones who have had to live without a wife, mother and grandmother.

Here are details of what happened on Nov. 29, 1987:

Berry, described as a 28-year-old "hot tempered" drifter who had been treated for paranoid schizophrenia and spent most of his adult life behind bars, was driving around Houston, Miss., in his grandmother's car when he spotted Bounds going to her car after church. Intending to rape her, he approached her, hit her and dragged her into his grandmother's car and drove out of town.

In his confession to authorities after his arrest, Berry said he took Bounds to the woods and ordered her to lie down, but he didn't rape her. He put her back in the car, drove elsewhere in the woods, dragged her from the car and beat and stomped her to death.

"The way he did her, it's not human. He stomped her. They found a tennis shoe mark on her face," said Chickasaw County Sheriff's Investigator John A. Porter.

That is the picture of Mary Bounds that her husband, Charlie, her daughter, Jena Watson, and her grandchildren have had to live with for the past two decades. Among her grandchildren is Rebecca Blissard, 25, a junior music major at the University of Southern Mississippi who plans to be at Parchman with her mother when the execution is carried out.

"I still remember everything that happened. It's one of my earliest memories," said Blissard, who was 5 when her grandmother was murdered.

Berry's death, she said, will finally bring closure to the long-suffering family.

It is possible that Berry's execution could be delayed by the Supreme Court until it hears a Kentucky case and determines whether lethal injection is cruel and inhumane and thus violates the U.S. Constitution.

That would be a disservice to Bounds and her family who have waited so long for justice to be meted out to Berry. It's almost ironic that a man who beat and stomped to death a woman now hopes the justice system will save him from a death he believes is "cruel and inhumane." Read more!

Obituary: Judge Lisa Richette -Philadelphia Inquirer

Ground-breaking jurist was caring, controversial

By Gayle Ronan Sims
October 30, 2007

Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Lisa Aversa Richette, 79, an advocate of society's disadvantaged who was as comfortable stirring a pot of soup as political controversy, died of lung cancer Friday.

In a long and colorful career, Judge Richette was a ground-breaking role model who ascended to the bench at a time when female judges were rare. In her 36 years as as judge, she was known for her compassion for those she saw as society's victims, be they neglected children, battered women, or men who had suffered troubled boyhoods. That same compassion, however, often made her a lightning rod for controversy.

"As a judge, she had a wide discretionary handle on her cases. She tried to reform defendants and help them," Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said yesterday. "Sometimes you could not get her to put Jack the Ripper in jail. She wanted to save that person. Lisa just did her own thing and did not care what others thought."

Judge Richette did not care whether you agreed with her on the bench, she said.

"The operative word for Lisa is extravagant," Abraham said. "She marched to the tune of her own drum."

Judge Richette devoted much of her life to helping abused and neglected children and the mentally ill. Her interest in troubled young people could be traced to her time as a law student at Yale University, when she served as cottage parent at an institution for emotionally disturbed children. Judge Richette herself survived a public battle with depression.

Born in 1928, Judge Richette grew up in South Philadelphia. She recalled years later that as a young girl during the Depression, she watched an endless stream of down-and-out people come to her father's real estate office for help. That experience drove her later devotion to helping the homeless, Judge Richette said in a 1984 interview.

A graduate of Philadelphia High School for Girls, she earned a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated in 1949. In 1952, she was among the first women to graduate from Yale Law School, with honors.

She taught law at Yale and later at Villanova, Temple and St. Joseph's Universities.

In 1954, she returned to Philadelphia and became an assistant district attorney under District Attorney Richardson Dilworth. She was part of cadre of young, energetic prosecutors Dilworth brought into the office.

In 1958, she married lawyer Lawrence Jarvis Richette. It was her second marriage. She had been briefly married to Irving Sandler, an art critic.

She and her second husband had a son, Laurence.

The couple were great entertainers who threw lavish dinner parties in their Lombard Street home amid rich Italian furnishings. Judge Richette was renowned for her cooking.

The marriage ended in divorce. Lawrence Richette demanded that she stop using his name. But his ex-wife, by then a judge, won the fight to retain his name after she married Vero Ajello, a marketing executive.

Judge Richette briefly opened a Center City law practice and in 1969 wrote a ground-breaking book about children and crime, The Throwaway Children, which is still used in classrooms.

"I met her as an adversary in the 1960s when she was an assistant district attorney," said David N. Savitt, a retired Common Pleas judge and a longtime friend of Judge Richette's. "It was obvious that she really cared about these juvenile cases. She cared about them as human beings."

In 1971, Gov. Milton Shapp named her one of the first women to Common Pleas Court, where she earned a reputation as a vocal opponent of the death penalty and a dependable advocate for women, children and the homeless.

"Many lawyers would waive a jury trial and let homicide cases be decided by her because she was competent and fair," Savitt said. "Lisa had her own style. She had deep concern for others."

She earned her share of critics, most notably former Mayor Frank Rizzo, who labeled her "Let 'em Loose Lisa."

Although Judge Richette lost a bid for the state Supreme Court in 1977, city voters repeatedly chose to retain her on the Common Pleas Court bench. At the time of her death, she was a senior judge in Family Court.

In the late 1970s, Judge Richette sought help for clinical depression at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital. She did not hide the illness but encouraged others with similar problems to get help.

A devout Catholic, Judge Richette volunteered in the kitchen of the Center City hospice run by the Sisters of Mercy. In her haute couture and bejeweled hands with painted nails, she prepared and delivered food to the homeless.

"When I met Judge Richette more than 20 years ago, I knew I had met a 24-carat character," said Thomas Massaro, a friend and construction project management consultant for the House of Umoja Boystown, a West Philadelphia home for young people operated by Queen Mother Falaka Fattah.

"Many times Lisa said a defendant had appeared in her court and instead of sending him to jail, she wanted him to work with me. She was beyond empathic. If she were a car, there would be no reverse gear."

One of her greatest challenges was her troubled son. In August, Judge Richette's son was charged with seriously assaulting his mother and exposing himself to a TV reporter a day later.

Judge Richette, who spent her final days at Vitas Hospice at St. Agnes Continuing Care Center in South Philadelphia, has no survivors besides her son.

Friends may visit at 6 p.m. Thursday at the chapel at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, 18th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. A Funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Friday at the cathedral. Burial will be in SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Sproul and Crum Creek Roads, Marple Township.

Read more!

VT shootings used for political gain? -Columbia (SC) Examiner

Joe Rogalsky,
2007-10-30

WASHINGTON - The father of a student killed in the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech endorsed a Democratic state Senate candidate Monday, further politicizing the deadliest shooting ever on an American higher-education campus.

Joe Samaha, whose daughter, Reema, was among those killed inside Norris Hall on April 16, announced his support of Janet Oleszek in her 37th Senate district race against Republican incumbent Ken Cuccinelli.

Candidates have discussed their ideas for making campuses safer throughout the campaign and are often asked about the Virginia Tech shooting during citizen forums. Samaha is believed to be the first parent of a victim to use the incident as a reason to support a political candidate.

“When it comes to our children’s safety, there is no political color,” Samaha, who lives in the district, said in a news conference on George Mason University’s campus. “No blue, no red, just common sense. No politician should support easy access to guns. ... Since April 16, I’ve been compelled to speak out and advocate on behalf of Reema and many of her fellow students and professors killed that day. Now you and I can be Reema’s voice on November 6.”

Oleszek, who has pledged to support requiring background checks at gun shows and backs legislation banning guns from schools and day care centers, also collected the endorsement Monday from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Cuccinelli described his position as opposing “taking away constitutional rights. I believe law-abiding citizens have a right under the Second Amendment to posses guns.” He pointed out that he opposes allowing undergraduate students to carry guns on campuses and supports additional laws preventing mentally ill citizens from owning firearms .

Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington, said the Virginia Tech tragedy was bound to become electioneering fodder.

“This is one of the hardest-fought campaigns in the whole state,” he said of the Oleszek-Cuccinelli contest. “Everything candidates can bring to the table to get themselves elected will be up for discussion. The Virginia Tech tragedy has been discussed in political debates throughout Virginia.”

jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com
Read more!

Judge Lisa A. Richette (1928-2007) -Phildadelphia Inquirer

Editorial: A trailblazer for women's rights, children in troubled homes, the mentally ill.
October 30, 2007

Reading tributes to retired Philadelphia Judge Lisa A. Richette, who died Friday of lung cancer, it comes as no surprise to learn she was stage-struck as a tap-dancing youngster and, throughout her later years, loved the theater and attended opera regularly.

That's because Richette lived as if on a stage. She created a larger-than-life presence in Philadelphia legal and political circles. Hers was a real-life drama of many acts, punctuated by tragi-comic moments, pathos and the occasional histrionics.

Almost from the time she distinguished herself by earning her Yale law degree, Richette was a trailblazer for women's rights, children in troubled homes, the mentally ill (she also suffered from depression), and the homeless. In court, she showed compassion, was pilloried famously for it by former Mayor Frank L. Rizzo, but stuck to her guns.

It's unfortunate that Richette came to be best known in later years for her own brushes with trouble - as a victim of two robberies, an assault, and her recent injury in a family dispute. Then again, even these encounters distinguished Richette from the ordinary. Read more!

Manhunt 2' video game under fire -The Associated Press

By Rachel Konrad

SAN FRANCISCO - Child advocates are urging parents not to buy "Manhunt 2," a video game whose characters kill and torture using implements ranging from glass and shovels to a fuse box and a toilet.

The title goes on sale Wednesday - Halloween - rated "mature," appropriate for people 17 and up, for about $28. In the first-person killer fantasy, the players take on the role of a man escaping from an insane asylum.

Made for the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2, the blood-drenched game has been sparking controversy since June, when the Entertainment Software Rating Board gave it a rating of "adult only" that would have excluded it from some big-box retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Producers at Rockstar Games submitted a modified version of "Manhunt 2" later in the summer that got the "mature" rating in August.

"This is a very clear and firm warning to parents that the game is in no way intended for children," the ESRB said in a statement.

The British Board of Film Classifications banned the title and maintained the ban on the modified version. It said the changes don't "go far enough."

"The impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone, or the essential nature of the gameplay, is clearly insufficient," the BBFC wrote. "There has been a reduction in the visual detail in some of the 'execution kills,' but in others they retain their original visceral and casually sadistic nature."

"In my opinion, it's the most senselessly violent and offensive thing I've ever watched," said James Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that advises parents about television, movies, Internet sites and video games that may be inappropriate for children.

Steyer, who has not seen the version of the game being released this week, was talking about an unrated version that has been circulating free on the Internet since August. That version contains more violence and sexually explicit content than the one being released commercially, including a scene where a man's testicles are mutilated with a pliers.

"It's disgusting," Steyer said. "It's so violent, it struck me personally as pornographic violence."

A spokesman for New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said the unrated version used a colour encoding system common to Western Europe and could be played in the United States only using a Sony PlayStation 2 console modified without company permission.

"The claim that an unreleased version of Manhunt is readily available on the Internet, and that children can easily download and play the unrated game, has not been proven," Take-Two's Ed Nebb wrote in an e-mail.

Professional gamers who reviewed the original and modified titles, which last 40 hours, say the original and the free download include a scene in which a character pummels someone's neck with a shovel that doesn't appear to have made the official cut, though the official game does allow players to use shovels as instruments of torture.

Similarly, the pliers-and-genitalia scene isn't in the official version, but players may use pliers to torture.

The Take-Two spokesman acknowledged that "Manhunt 2" was meant "specifically for those players mature enough to appreciate it."

"Take-Two believes in freedom of creative expression. We also believe in social responsibility," Nebb wrote. "Not all of our products are intended for all consumers and we responsibly market our mature products to adults. We firmly believe that informed adults should be able to make their own choices about entertainment products for themselves and their families." Read more!

Wilder discusses mental health among homeless -WWBT Richmond (VA)

Video report here.

The last in a series of town hall meetings hosted by Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder began at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Some of the focus was expected to be on public safety and mental health.

The meeting was taking place only a few blocks from where 70-year-old Susanne Thompson was stabbed to death Saturday morning. Police have arrested a mentally ill Richmond man who had been off his medication. Johnny Hughes, 52, is facing a murder charge for that attack.

The city was expected to provide police and mental health professionals at Tuesday’s town hall meeting to answer the questions and concerns of neighbors who live in the area.

This town hall is the latest in a series of meetings that allow Mayor Wilder to hear questions and give answers directly to the public.

“We must do all we can to avoid a recurrence of this type of horrific crime,” the mayor said on Monday. Read more!

Meritain examines workplace stress -Buffalo (NY) Business First

Links to the report can be found on the article home page here.

by Annemarie Franczyk Business First

Employees say that while stress negatively affects their job performance, their employers are not doing enough -- if anything -- to address stress, work/life balance or mental health in the work place.

That's according to a survey of 411 employees by Meritain Health and the Partnership for Workplace Mental Health.The national survey found that 94 percent of respondents believe their stress level affects job performance. However, 52 percent of employees said their employer does not address mental health issues and 40 percent of employees said they aren't aware of what mental health benefits are offered by their employer.

"These survey results illustrate the need for employers to better make the connection between untreated mental health conditions and lost productivity, offer more comprehensive mental health benefits and better promote these benefits to their employees," said Meritain Chief Medical Officer Dr. Larry Luter.

The Amherst-based Meritain provides services for self-funded health plans; the Partnership for Workplace Mental Health is a program of the American Psychiatric Foundation.

All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved. Read more!

Inadequate Mental Therapy Cited For Cancer Patients in US - Voice of America

Video link to this story here.

By Melinda Smith
30 October 2007

The U.S. Institute of Medicine has released a study calling for uniform standards of emotional therapy for cancer patients. VOA's Melinda Smith has more on the study.

These cancer survivors are sharing their stories of pain -- not just the pain of surgery or chemotherapy -- but the anxiety and depression which lingers long after treatment.

Beth Leibson-Hawkins is a cancer survivor. She says, "It would have been really nice to have somebody help me think about what it means to have cancer and how that affects the rest of your life."

While the study acknowledges that medical treatment for cancer has taken great strides, it says the emotional scars of these potentially life-threatening diseases are often left untreated. The report is especially critical of that lack of treatment at 20 of the nation's best cancer care hospitals. Only eight have routine psychological screening -- and that is offered only to some patients, not all.

"We have to take a wider view and treat the whole patient and take care of all of their needs, including their cancer," says Dr. Lee Schwartzberg, a cancer specialist at the West Clinic in Memphis, Tennessee.

At the West Clinic, patients respond to a questionnaire about their emotional well-being -- before they undergo a physical exam. The study by the Institute of Medicine wants this type of screening done along every step, from diagnosis to the last visit to the doctor.

Breast cancer survivor Karen Suddeth says that would have helped her cope during the many days of chemotherapy. "That was so, so hard for me. I mean, I will never forget the morning I knew my hair was going to have to come off."

The report also criticized medical providers for failing to refer patients to mental health counselors and cancer survivor support groups. One cancer patient found the experience of sharing helpful in recovery. She says, "Besides my family, who else did I have to talk to?"

One positive note: The American Society of Clinical Oncology, made up of cancer specialists, has announced it is offering a new training course to its members on how to be more sensitive to the emotional needs of their patients. Read more!

The meltdown in mental health-care -Sonoma (CA) Index-Tribune

By Emily Charrier

Mental health care is suffering on county, state and national levels due to lack of funding, lack of access and a lack of trained professionals.

"It's a whole national trend," said Rita Scardaci, director of the county's Department of Health.

Those in the mental health-care industry say the root of the problem stems from the fact that mental health care is not treated with the same attention or resources as physical health care.

"The political system has not treated mental illness and the treatment of mentally ill the same as physical health. Never have, still don't," said Dr. Richard Kirk, a Sonoma-based psychiatrist and chair of the Sonoma Valley Health Care District board. "If equity for mental health services was really put in the system, it would be a huge change."
All too often mental health care is considered a private insurance matter, with little access to ongoing psychological care. However, experts say even those with private insurance are not necessarily getting the care they need. Even worse, those who need access to care the most are all too often the ones with no insurance at all.

"Sonoma County is like many other places in the nation, struggling to meet the needs of the seriously mentally ill and just beginning the new frontier: How to prevent mental illness, how to grow a healthy child, how to provide access to mental health care in the absence of 'parity' laws, (which require) insurance companies to cover mental illness on par with physical illness," said Art Ewart, mental health service director for the county. "In the face of poor private insurance coverage, the community will continue to look to an underfunded public system and be disappointed."

Up until the closure of the inpatient unit at Santa Rosa's Psychiatric Emergency Services (known as the Norton Center), the facility acted as a sort of "holding pen" for all patients, regardless of what level of treatment was necessary. Although the facility is still open to patients in crisis, a majority of outpatients are being sent to other treatment facilities depending on what level of care is needed.

"Public mental health programs around the country are developing a far greater system of care than the private insurance sector can provide," Ewart said. That includes "everything from crisis intervention, to overnight care, to short-term stays of 10 to 14 days in a residential setting, to traditional outpatient case management."
Without parity laws to provide quality mental health care at least to those with insurance, the county is trying to get creative by launching mental health-care programs that cover a wider variety of needs. County officials say they are in the process of moving away from large mental hospitals in favor of smaller treatment programs that provide patients with an appropriate treatment for each specific situation.

"Clients treated in 'facilities' for long periods become institutionalized," Ewart said. "The age of 'Cuckoo's Nest' is long, long over."

In this vein, the county developed a six-bed residential crisis intervention program, where patients can voluntarily commit themselves to treatment in a smaller, more home-like environment.
"That has been huge," Scardaci said. "It's really a much more therapeutic environment."

While many county health-care professionals see this change as a positive move for adult patients, there is still the problem of juvenile mental health care. Children cannot be treated in the same facilities as adults, and the newly developed programs are mainly designed for adults. There is nowhere in Sonoma County to take a juvenile experiencing a mental health crisis. Ewart said even when a problem exists, the county tries everything possible to avoid hospitalizing a minor.

"Hospitals are not good places for children. They learn better how to threaten suicide, how to cut themselves, how to act out, and how to hear voices," he said. "So, we do everything possible to support to the family and keep the kid at home before considering a hospital." When keeping a child at home is not an option, juveniles are sent to the St. Helena Medical Center in Vallejo. Experts say this can compound the problem, by taking the patient away from his or her home environment.
"The farther away you take a patient, the more it adds to the problem," Kirk said.

Even with a more progressive mental health-care treatment plan, funding remains a concern. In May the Department of Mental Health Services released a report to the county's Board of Supervisors that stated plans to discontinue several mental health-care programs, including the Adult Service Team, which is estimated to serve at least 600 clients and the Resource Team, which aids 500 adults and 50 children. Despite slashing programs, more funding is still needed. The report estimated the Department of Mental Health, despite cutting nearly $7 million in programs, will still need around $2.5 million in additional funding for the current fiscal year.

Jennifer Hedgepeth, president of the Sonoma County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said her organization, along with other advocacy groups, has felt added pressure from the loss of these programs. "There is not enough money available to fund the services that the mentally ill depend on," she said.
Despite the county's attempts to develop unique treatment facilities, it is apparent mental health care will be a problem lawmakers continue to struggle with. First District Supervisor Valerie Brown summed it up when she said, "It's a broken system." Read more!

State mental agency admits deficit - Atlanta Journal

Short on money and staff, Georgia's mental hospitals bear daunting challenges.

By ALAN JUDD, ANDY MILLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Milledgeville — Georgia's state mental hospitals have operated at an average annual budget deficit of $11 million for eight years, contributing to the understaffing that has plagued the facilities, a state official said Tuesday.

"If you have to offset a deficit, you slow down your hiring or don't fill positions,'' Gwen Skinner, director of the state's mental health division, told Gov. Sonny Perdue's mental health commission.

THE STORY SO FAR
• Previously: Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed a commission to study Georgia's mental health care system after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on suspicious deaths and abuse of state mental hospital patients.
• The latest: The head of the state's mental health agency acknowledges chronic underfunding and overcrowding, which the newspaper said contributed to dangerous conditions in the seven hospitals.
• What's next: The commission will recommend improvements while the U.S. Justice Department investigates whether state hospital conditions violate patients' civil rights.

At the seven state-run hospitals, Skinner said, 39 percent of registered nurses' positions were vacant in September, with an annual turnover figure of almost one in three.

"This is a critical, critical issue for us," she said.

In her presentation to the commission, meeting at Central State Hospital, Skinner went into greater detail than ever before in acknowledging problems with underfunding, understaffing and overcrowding in the facilities.

Those problems were the subject of a series of articles this year in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailing questionable deaths and abuse in the state hospitals. The newspaper reported that, from 2002 through 2006, at least 115 state hospital patients died under suspicious circumstances. In another 194 cases, hospital workers physically or sexually abused patients, the newspaper found in its series, "A Hidden Shame.''

Perdue created the study commission after vetoing a General Assembly resolution forming a similar panel, saying lawmakers had excluded executive branch officials as members. The Perdue panel includes representatives from the departments of Corrections, Community Health, and Human Resources, which runs the hospitals.

At Tuesday's meeting, the commission's second, Skinner used newly compiled statistics to show the challenges ahead.

The hospitals typically have operated with occupancy rates in adult psychiatric units of more than 100 percent since March 2005, Skinner said. The optimal figure is 85 percent, she said.

Georgia is churning patients out of its hospitals at a rapid rate.

The typical length of a stay is six days for adult mental health patients, with more than one-third discharged in less than 72 hours.

Patients at Georgia's hospitals are twice as likely to return within 30 days of discharge as the national average.

The state's figures drew pointed questions from commission members.

"How good is the care we're providing?'' asked Dr. Charles Nemeroff, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine.

"This commission came together because of a crisis. It could be a heckuva lot better than what it is now.''

Nemeroff said after the hearing, "You can't really provide adequate care for people with a major psychiatric illness in three or four days in a hospital.''

Nemeroff and other commission members also targeted the lack of mental health services available in the community for discharged patients.

Angela Hicks-Hill, executive director of a community service board in the Milledgeville region, told the panel that funding problems have forced her agency to reduce mental health services, including those for children.

"Three years ago, we had programs in four of six counties,'' she said. "Now we are in just two [counties].''

Mental health advocates reiterated their call for an independent review of hospital deaths and allegations of abuse, and for an ombudsman's office.

Sen. Greg Goggans (R-Douglas), a commission member, said after the hearing that he was encouraged by the panel's discussion. "We've got a long way to go,'' he said. "But we understand our system is broken.''

"I think [the commission] will make a huge difference in the lives of these people.''


Read more!

Council Says Some Hospitals Don’t Follow New Law on the Uninsured - New York Times

By SARAH KERSHAW

Several New York City hospitals did not inform indigent patients lacking health insurance that they could qualify for public assistance as required by a new state law, according to a City Council investigation. Most hospitals in the study, however, did comply with the law.

The review was conducted by investigators who posed as patients when they called or visited the hospitals’ billing offices.

The new state law went into effect in January and was based on the case of an uninsured 24-year-old Long Island man, Manny Lanza, who died in 2005 of a brain ailment and whose family was billed $42,000.

He would have qualified for financial assistance under the new law, which requires that all New York hospitals tell patients without health insurance, verbally, in writing and through conspicuous signs in emergency rooms and other places, that they could qualify for financial assistance from a $847 billion state charity care hospital fund.

The City Council investigation of 59 hospitals found that 22 percent of the hospitals had no signs posted, but 63 percent had posters in two or more areas.

Investigators posing as patients or their relatives made one phone call and one visit to each of the hospitals to ask about financial aid; at 42 hospitals, the staff told investigators about the financial aid without prompting, but staff members at nine hospitals did not provide the information even after being prompted. At five hospitals among the nine, the staff members said patients would receive no care if they were unable to pay.

Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, who introduced similar city legislation in 2006, said she was gratified that a majority of the hospitals complied with the new state law.

“We saw a significant amount of compliance, for this early in a law’s existence,” she said. “But the thing about a public health law is that if one person is forgotten, it creates the real possibility that that one person might not get the lifesaving information they need.”

One million adult New Yorkers are uninsured, and more than 700,000 of them are employed, according to the latest figures from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new state law also set eligibility guidelines for charity care for the first time, requiring that patients with incomes at or less than the federal poverty rate, or $10,210 for one person and $20,650 for a family of four, are guaranteed lower costs, including no more than $150 for surgery or more than $15 for emergency room and clinic visits. Patients with higher incomes can qualify for care on a sliding scale set by each hospital, under the law.

The investigation found that staff workers at three hospitals, Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center and New York Community Hospital, both in Brooklyn, and Caritas-Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, failed to inform the investigators posing as patients or relatives of patients about the financial assistance both over the phone and in person.

Officials at Brookdale, which annually treats 110,000 patients in its emergency rooms and 230,000 in ambulatory care settings, said all 3,000 employees had been informed of the hospital’s responsibilities under the new law and that additional training was provided to more than 130 employees who work on billing and financial aid. A spokesman, Ole W. Pedersen, said that in light of the City Council report, the hospital administration would monitor the staff more closely.

Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, a group representing 300 hospitals, said hospitals supported the new law and would work to comply, even as hospital charity dollars are being exhausted by unprecedented numbers of uninsured patients.

“Hospitals are in a fiscal crisis,” he said. “They are being squeezed by the payers and they are being squeezed by the uninsured, and then we have the social and moral imperative to do the right thing for the patient. We really are between a rock and a hard place.”


Read more!

Iraq, Afghan Vets at Risk for Suicides - Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mary Gallagher did not get a knock at the door from a military chaplain with news of her Marine husband's death in a faraway place. Instead, the Iraq war veteran committed suicide eight months after returning home.

She is left wondering why.

It's a question shared by hundreds of families of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have taken their own lives in a homecoming suicide pattern of a magnitude that is just starting to emerge.

Preliminary Veterans Affairs Department research obtained by The Associated Press reveals for the first time that there were at least 283 suicides among veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001 and the end of 2005.

The numbers, while not dramatically different from society as a whole, provide the first quantitative look at the toll on today's combat veterans and are reminiscent of the increased suicide risk among returning soldiers in the Vietnam era.

Today's homefront suicide tally is running at least double the number of troop suicides in the war zones as thousands of men and women return with disabling injuries and mental health disorders that put them at higher risk.

A total of 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of the wars, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.

Add the number of returning veterans and the finding is that at least 430 of the 1.5 million troops who have fought in the two wars have killed themselves over the past six years. And that doesn't include people like Gallagher's husband who committed suicide after their combat tours and while still in the military -- a number the Pentagon says it doesn't track.

That compares with at least 4,227 U.S. military deaths overall since the wars started -- 3,840 in Iraq and 387 in and around Afghanistan.

In response, the VA is ramping up suicide prevention programs.

Research suggests that combat trauma increases the risk of suicide, according to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Difficulty dealing with failed relationships, financial and legal troubles, and substance abuse also are risk factors among troops, said Cynthia O. Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Families see the effects first hand.

''None of them come back without being touched a little,'' said Gallagher, a mother of three whose husband, Marine Gunnery Sgt. James Gallagher, took his own life in 2006 inside their home at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

He was proud of his Iraq service, but she wonders whether he was bothered by the death of his captain in Iraq or an incident in which he helped rescue a soldier who was in a fire and later died. Shortly before his death, her husband was distraught over an assignment change he saw as an insult, she said.

''His death contradicts the very person he was. It's very confusing and difficult to understand,'' said Gallagher of Lynbrook, N.Y.

The family of another Iraq veteran who committed suicide, Jeffrey Lucey, 23, of Belchertown, Mass., filed suit against the former VA secretary, alleging that bad care at the VA was to blame.

And the family of Joshua Omvig, a 22-year-old Iraq war veteran from Davenport, Iowa, who also committed suicide, successfully pushed Congress to pass a bill that President Bush is expected to sign that requires the VA to improve suicide prevention care.

Suicides in Iraq have occurred since the early days of the war, but awareness was heightened when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops -- the highest in 26 years of record-keeping.

That compares with 9.3 per 100,000 for all military services combined in 2006 and 11.1 per 100,000 for the general U.S. population in 2004, the latest year statistics were available. The Army has said the civilian rate for the same age and gender mix as in the Army is 19 to 20 per 100,000 people.

Just looking at the VA's early numbers, Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health, said there does not appear to be an epidemic of suicides among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who left the military.

Katz said post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and problem drinking increase a person's suicide risk by two or three times, but the rate of suicide among those with those conditions ''is still very, very low.''

Katz acknowledged, however, that it is too early to know the long-term ramifications for those who served in the wars and said the VA ''is very intensely involved in increasing suicide prevention.''

''We're not doing it because there's an epidemic in returning veterans, though each death of a returning veteran is a tragedy and it's important to prevent it,'' Katz said.

The VA and Defense Department have hired more counselors and made other improvements in mental health care, including creation of a veterans suicide prevention hotline.

At the VA's national suicide hotline center based in Canandaigua, N.Y., counselors have taken more than 9,000 calls since July. Some callers are just looking for someone to talk to. Others are concerned family members. Callers who choose to give their names can opt to be met at a local VA center by a suicide prevention counselor; more than 120 callers have been rescued by emergency personnel -- some after swallowing pills or with a gun nearby, according to the center.

''It's sad, but I think in the other way it's very exciting because already we've seen really sort of people being able to change their lives around because of the access to resources they've been able to get,'' said Jan Kemp, who oversees the call center.

Penny Coleman, whose ex-husband committed suicide after returning from Vietnam, said she doesn't buy what she calls the ''we didn't expect this'' mentality about suicide.

''If you'd chosen to pay attention after Vietnam you would have and should have anticipated it would happen again,'' said Coleman, who published a book on the subject last year.

One government study of Army veterans from Vietnam found they were more likely to die from suicide than other veterans in the first five years after leaving the military, although the study found that the likelihood dissipated over time. There is still heated debate, however, over the total number of suicides by Vietnam veterans; the extent to which it continues even today is unknown.

One major hurdle in stopping suicide is getting people to ask for help. From 20 percent to 50 percent of active duty troops and reservists who returned from war reported psychological problems, relationship problems, depression and symptoms of stress reactions, but most report that they have not sought help, according to a report from a military mental health task force.

''It's only when it becomes painful will someone seek counseling,'' said Chris Ayres, manager of the combat stress recovery program at the Wounded Warrior Project, a private veterans' assistance group based in Jacksonville, Fla. ''That's usually how it happens. Nobody just walks in, because it's the hardest thing for a male, a Marine, a type-A personality figure to just go in there and say, 'Hey, I need some help.'''

While not suicidal, Ayres, 37, a former Marine captain from the Houston area who had the back of his right leg blown off in Iraq, has experienced episodes related to his post-traumatic stress disorder and said he worried about being stigmatized if he got help.

He's since learned to manage through counseling, and he's encouraging other veterans to get help.

Ayres is among 28,000 Americans injured in the war, more than 3,000 seriously.

In a study published earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University found that veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as male nonveterans. High gun ownership rates, along with debilitating injuries and mental health disorders, were all risk factors that seemed to put the veterans at greater risk, said Mark Kaplan, one of the researchers.

While veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan were not included in the study, Kaplan said that given the nature of the injuries of the recent wars and the strain of long and repeated deployments, the newer generation of veterans could be at risk for suicide.

Kaplan said primary care physicians should ask patients whether they are veterans, and if the answer is yes, inquire about their mental health.

''This is war unlike other wars and we don't know the long-term implications and the hidden injuries of war,'' Kaplan said.

Dr. Dan Blazer, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center who served this year on the military's mental health task force, said improvements in care will likely help some veterans, but he's concerned about this generation. He said he treats World War II veterans still struggling mentally with their military experience.

''There's still going to be individuals that just totally slip through all of these safety nets that we construct to try to help things in the aftermath,'' Blazer said.

Suicide, Blazer said, ''is a cost of war. It's a big one.''

------


Read more!