[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H26-H27]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              HELPING FAMILIES IN MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with you a 
story today from Liza Long.
  A year ago, Liza wrote about the difficulty she faces in raising a 
son who suffers from serious mental illness:
  ``I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son, but he 
terrifies me,'' she said.

       A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to 
     kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his 
     overdue library books. His 7- and 9-year-old siblings knew 
     the safety plan. They ran to the car and locked the doors 
     before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from 
     Michael. I then methodically collected all the sharp objects 
     in the house into a single Tupperware container that now 
     travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream 
     insults at me and threatened to kill or hurt me.

                              {time}  1030

       That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a 
     paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive 
     ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental 
     hospital didn't have any beds that day, and Michael calmed 
     down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a 
     prescription for Zyprexa and a followup visit with a local 
     pediatric psychiatrist.
       This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. 
     Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for 
     grace and trust that, in hindsight, it will all make sense.
       I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I 
     am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris' mother. I am James 
     Holmes' mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. These boys--and 
     their mothers--need help. In the wake of another horrific 
     national tragedy, it's easy to talk about guns. But it's time 
     to talk about mental illness.

  Liza shared her story with my subcommittee last year at a forum of 
parents of children with severe mental illness.
  After studying our Nation's mental health system for the past year as 
chairman of the Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee, we 
discovered those families who need help the most are the least likely 
to get it. And where there is no help, there was no hope.
  Federal programs meant to serve the severely mentally ill are 
failing. The Federal Government sets up barriers that make it 
increasingly difficult for mothers and fathers to care for a son or 
daughter coming of age who needs help for mental illness.
  Our current policies block or interfere with appropriate treatment. 
Funds are wasted on ineffective programs, and scientific standards are 
not used in determining where the moneys go to for grants and 
treatments. Our current policies have replaced hospital beds with 
prison cells and homeless shelters as options for the seriously mental 
ill. That is wrong and that is immoral.
  That is why I introduced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis 
Act, H.R. 3717, to deliver care to those with severe mental illness who 
need better treatment--real treatment--not excuses and not delays.
  Today, Liza's son is doing better with the proper diagnosis and 
medical care.

[[Page H27]]

She wrote about where things stand with reforming mental health this 
week, 13 months after her initial letter, and discussed the Helping 
Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. She said:

       Considering our limited resources, it just makes sense to 
     help those who are most in need. That was the rationale 
     behind the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act.

  She continued to call for what is needed to help our seriously ill 
children, saying it is:

     access to medical care for the 11 million people who suffer 
     from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. 
     The bill seeks to accomplish this goal by empowering parents, 
     increasing acute care beds, and promoting assisted outpatient 
     treatment for as many as 50 percent of schizophrenia 
     sufferers whose symptoms include anosognosia, or lack of 
     awareness of their illness.

  The bill also addresses the critical shortage of child psychologists, 
where there's only one for every 7,000 children in the U.S., with funds 
for telepsychiatry, and seeks to reform SAMHSA by redirecting funds for 
community-based care toward evidence-based programs.
  The Wall Street Journal praised the bill, noting that SAMHSA, the 
government agency charged with funding community mental health 
treatment, has little or no focus on medically driven care, and of its 
537 full-time employees, only two are physicians.
  Over the past months, I have received an enormous outpouring of 
support from parents and caregivers of loved ones who have serious 
mental illness. They know this bill takes mental illness out of the 
shadows of ignorance, despair, and neglect and into the bright light of 
hope.
  Each week, I will come before the House and share more stories like 
Liza's. I encourage my colleagues to join me in this endeavor by 
sponsoring the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, H.R. 3717. 
Where there is real help, there is real hope.

                          ____________________