Senators Advance Behavioral Health Act That May Face Hurdles

While the Committee on Health, Hospitals and Human Services voted Friday, after hours of testimony, to favorably forward a Behavioral Health Act to the Rules Committee, one senator said her concerns about the bill kept her from voting.

Sen. Alma Francis Heyliger said at the end of the meeting that, though amendments had been made and she supported the general effort, she abstained from voting because she felt more amendments need to be made.

The goals of the act include coordination of agencies that support individuals with behavioral problems and establishing a public behavioral health facility to treat individuals voluntarily and involuntarily who face behavioral health challenges. It also aims to amend and repeal conflicting laws.

Introducing the act, Sen. Novelle Francis said, “Behavior health and how we handle it has been a long-standing crisis in the territory.” He added, “This population cannot wait any longer.”

The first testifier, psychologist Lori Thompson, owner of Insight Psychological Services, named three concerns she had with the measure.

First, Thompson said, “The bill as written will likely bankrupt the territory, as this bill now makes it the Department of Health’s legal responsibility to provide all-inclusive mental health care for indigent members of the territory.”