WASHINGTON (AP) -- Spurred by deaths of mentally or
emotionally disturbed teen-agers in physical restraints,
congressional Democrats proposed sharply restricting when
restraints can be used on the mentally ill.
``My son was not a bad boy,'' said Marsha Draheim, whose
14-year-old son, Mark, died in December after being restrained
by three counselors at a residential treatment center in
Orefield, Pa.
Draheim spoke at a Capitol news conference to highlight three
bills that would outlaw the use of restraints on mental health
patients except when necessary to ensure the safety of the
patient or other patients.
``Physical restraints and seclusion are being used not only
too much, but also inhumanely, brutally and sometimes fatally,''
said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., whose bill would cover all
patients in the roughly 1,100 private and public mental health
facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding.
Lieberman's bill, and separate bills by Sen. Christopher
Dodd, D-Conn., and Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Rosa DeLauro,
D-Conn., and Pete Stark, D-Calif., would require mental health
facilities to report deaths.
Such reports would be available for possible investigation by
the nation's protection and advocacy system, a network of mostly
nonprofit agencies in the states that is federally mandated to
provide legal representation and advocacy for the disabled.
None of the bills would provide additional funding for that
system to conduct investigations, although lawmakers said it
could be provided once initial standards for use of restraints,
and reporting requirements, are in place.
``It's a very, very big concern,'' said Gary Gross, director
of legal services for the National Association of Protection &
Advocacy Systems Inc., which supports restrictions. ``Now, more
people are turned away than we can serve.''
The proposals, which are backed by the Clinton administration
but few Republicans, are modeled on existing federal
restrictions on the use of physical restraints in nursing homes.
Physical restraints are ways to restrict a person's movement,
such as by pinning them to the floor. They may also include the
use of straitjackets, leather straps, shackles or other
equipment.
Lawmakers said restraints are used too often on the mentally
ill to punish them or change their behavior, or for the
convenience of workers who may be poorly paid, overworked and
badly trained.
They pointed to cases such as the March 1998 death of
11-year-old Andrew McClain while being restrained in a Portland,
Conn., psychiatric hospital. A subsequent investigation by The
Hartford Courant turned up 142 restraint-related deaths, many
involving children, over a decade.
In Massachusetts last year, 16-year-old Mark Soares died
after workers put him in a headlock at a home for troubled
youths in Marlboro, where he was placed because of a history of
committing verbal and physical assaults.
In Colorado, 17-year-old Casey Collier died of asphyxiation
in 1993 after six hospital orderlies restrained him by sitting
on his back, legs and shoulders, DeGette said.
Dodd's bill and the House version would require better
training of mental health workers. They would subject facilities
that don't comply with the new law to penalties, including loss
of federal funding.
