Question about discrimination toward those with mental health conditons.
can a facility, such as an assisted living or nursing home, not accept a person with certain mental illnesses? As I see it, if a person is on put on medications that prevent the behavior that casued the initial hospitalization, a assisted living facility should not be able to discriminate due to the fact the a person has had issues that have now been resolved. If the facility takes persons with diabetes, then they must take a person with deperession, as long each is stable with their condition. They are both physical conditions. I know that this is the brick wall I am going to face in helping my aunt find an assissted living faciltiy to move to after her stay in the psych unit at the hospiital, that resulted from her recent negative actions. Legally, they can't discriminate, but they do. I had to fight so hard to get my mom into the places that she wanted to go to, because of her long history of mental conditions. Does anyone have any legal info. that I can copy and print, to have on hand, so that If this comes up, I can recite to them the law, and how they can't discriminate. It has been about 5-6 years since I had to do this when my mom was around.
Genisa -
This may not answer your question directly, but we had a similar situation with my mother in law. This may have changed, however I believe that facilities have "beds" that are purchased and paid for by different agencies, and depending on the needs of the client, the bed will be utilized accordingly. For instance, an assisted living facility may have 35 beds. 10 may be private pay. 22 may be medicaid funded. 1 may be reserved for individuals with developmental disabilities, and the department of developmental services would fund that bed, and the last two would be reserved for individuals with mental health issues, and those would be funded by the department of mental health. The system is extremely complicated in all aspects - at least in the states I have navigated. You may want to google mental health and assisted living, and see if you can find a group who can guide you through the process in your area.
Good luck.
-Kim