By Warren Fiske
The Virginian-Pilot
RICHMOND
Problems with the state's mental health system exposed after the Virginia Tech shootings will require substantial money to correct, the chairman of a legislative panel looking into the issue said Monday.
"If anyone thinks change will be made without a significant increase of resources to the mental health system, well, you don't get something for nothing," said Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News, chairman of the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions.
The group held the first of four planned meetings this year to propose legislation to close loopholes that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to sidestep the mental health system before he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech on April 16 before killing himself.
Joseph Samaha, the father of slain student Reema Samaha, voiced hope that the General Assembly would take a broad look at mental health regulations and gun laws when it convenes in the winter.
"The issues of mental-health-care-related loopholes in the mental health system and in Virginia's gun control laws are complex, multifaceted and interrelated," Samaha said.
"More sensible gun legislation must be passed in coordination with the mental health issues this panel will address," he added. "It's time that you become responsive and proactive, not reactive, on legislation that will close the loopholes."
Cho came to the attention of the New River Valley Community Services Board in December 2005, after Virginia Tech police said he had harassed two female students and an acquaintance worried that Cho was suicidal.
A special judge declared Cho an imminent danger to himself and ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment.
It is unclear whether Cho received the treatment.
Hamilton's committee hopes to propose legislation that would require compliance from those ordered to receive treatment and tighten checks by local community service boards, which provide mental health services. The panel received briefings from a variety of state mental health officials.
Mary Ann Bergeron, executive director of the Virginia Association of Community Service Boards, said more personnel are needed.
"We have a dire shortage of people to work in the fields," she said.
Hamilton's committee is one of three state panels looking into mental health laws. The Virginia Supreme Court launched a commission last fall, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appointed a task force shortly after the shootings.
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Has anyone figured out that Mary Ann Bergeron is a Lobbyist
They keep quoting Mary Ann Bergeron like she is some kind of a representative of the Virginia Government. Not.
Check her out in the Virginia Lobbyist database
Va Tech
First what happen at Va. Tech was terrible, but the real problem with mental health started back in 1980's when people in Richm0nd started cutting money and programs. People with mental health problems have just about no place to go. Community Service boards in your area are problay under staff and short on money. Mental Health has always been low on the budget list for funds. Hospital that could help have been closed are very short on staff. I've dealt with Mental Health for 20 plus years cause I have a parent with mental illness that has lived with me for the past 10 years. When are goverment cuts money for medicine that mental health patients need but their insurance doesn't cover and they have to buy, most of the times it's your medicine are eating so which lose I say medicine. The people in Richmond need to fix something they broke years ago, that came around in a very bad way to bite.......
a Complete investigation
What Cho did was horrible! But there are other issues at work here that are overshadowed by the atrocity of Cho's actions. One is the treatment of the students. There is a gross difference in the treatment of the students who are financially well off and those that have to work to finance their education. I know a former tech student who was told by a dean, after earning 158 credit hours that they were "taking up space for a better student". She was also told that she needed to quit her job and be a "real" student because she couldn't do both at tech. So now she has 158 credit hours, no degree, and 70,000 in student loans.
What Cho did was inexcuseable and I in no way want to minimize it. I just wish that they would also investigate the schools treatment of some of their students. Start with all the students who have enough hours to graduate but didn't. Then ask why.
Virginia Tech
I'm not surprised that Cho managed to "slip" through the system for years. His strange and chaotic behavior was documented since elementary school. As an elementary school teacher, I can tell you that even at that level there is no real help in place for students who are already beginning to show signs of mental health issues. There is nothing teachers, administrators, or any one in the Virginia school system can do. Parents have to take the steps and if they are unwilling or unable well, oh well. Social Services also can do nothing. There has to be blatant abuse and then don't count on anything. As one social worker told one of my colleagues, "Welcome to ------." I will not say the city. Lack of funding is no surprise either. The mental health services have been cut over and over. Even health insurance is really no help. I can't afford for anyone in my family to need to need mental health care - even with insurance. So why are people acting so shocked and outraged?
Tim Kaine?
Doesn't republican Tom Ridge sit on the panel, and wasn't the statement about it costing more money made by Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News? Tim Kaine, as Governor, appointed the task force but has he given them a script or something? I agree that it shouldn't cost more to alleviate this particular problem and, no, I'm not even a democrat, but this is about nut jobs shooting innocent people. Let's not keep using it as an excuse for partisan political views, let's just solve the problem.
What???
How does legislating new laws, re-writing existing ones to close loopholes in current mental/laws equal more social workers and "we need money"? I would love for Tiny Tim Kaine and that commission to answer this; How is it that long ago, before gun laws and state & federal mental services such as those we have today eve existed, that you almost never heard of any massacres, much less on the scale of what happened at Viginia Tech? The answer, which you'll never hear from this bunch of looney tunes.. is that in the old days, a person's character and social behavior, exhibited in ways such as Cho did, were questioned immediately! Cho was a nutjob from the start, and everyone could see that. No amount of money, not even one social worker for each person in the nation, is going to prevent another Tech shooting. This will happen again somewhere, until we as a nation get over our PC conditioning and start watching and dealing with Chos' the moment we see them.