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Updated: 12/10/10

STATE LEGISLATIVE ALERTS

State Legislative Issues Updates:

HB281:

To permit additional health care professionals who provide mental health services (PCC’s) to take into custody and transport those persons to a hospital.

Current Status: 12/16/2009 - House Judiciary, (Second Hearing)
The bill will allow PCCs, LISWs & IMFTs to take a person into custody and transport them to a hospital for evaluation by a doctor for a mental health hold. A similar bill including only the PCCs passed the senate last year, but did not get through the House.
The bill has had two hearings. Jim Rough, Executive Director of the Ohio CSWMFT Board, is working with the associations and will testify at a future hearing.

Greg Pollock, OMHCA Board member and Chair of OCA’s Government Relations Committee, testified in the House Judiciary Committee on December 16th.

From the Towner Policy Group OCA Legislative Report, January 2010:

Your help is needed: Please consider writing a letter to your State Representative or or a member of the House Judiciary Committee asking them to support the enactment of House Bill 281. Tell your legislators why this legislation is needed and any problems you have had in the past with an individual needing a mental health hold. Explain what your educational background is and why your education prepares you to sign a mental health hold. If your state legislator is a cosponsor of the bill, please thank him/her for cosponsoring the bill. If you do not know who your State Rep is, please go to www.legislature.state.oh.us and enter your zip code. Letters may be addressed as follows:

The Honorable _____________________

Ohio House of Representatives

77 South High Street

Columbus, Ohio 43215

Dear Representative ______________________

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