Senate passes medical
stipulation for electroshock therapy
By MARY ALICE ROBBINS
Morris News Service
AUSTIN - Two physicians would have to certify that electroshock
therapy is necessary for a patient 65 or older before that
individual could begin a series of the treatments under a bill
passed Friday by the Texas Senate.
Sen. Jerry Patterson, the bill's sponsor, said there have been
instances of abuse in the use of electroconvulsive therapy - or ECT
- for treating the elderly.
''This is to try to curtail that happening in the future,'' said
Patterson, R-Pasadena. According to the American Psychiatric
Association, ECT involves stimulating a patient's brain with a
controlled series of electrical pulses to treat certain illnesses,
such as severe clinical depression.
State records indicate that 46 percent of all patients who
receive ECT in Texas are 65 or older - an age at which they are
eligible for Medicare.
A random audit of hospital records by the Texas Department of
Health found that some hospitals have given individual patients too
many treatments and performed inadequate medical screening to
determine whether a patient will benefit from ECT.
An on-site visit during March to the Pavilion at Northwest Texas
Medical Center in Amarillo found that patients were admitted as
voluntary inpatients to the facility even though they weren't
competent to sign in as voluntary patients, according to a report on
that visit.
The report also noted that Pavilion patients were asked and
allowed to sign informed consents for ECT even though they were not
competent to do that. The Pavilion has to stop ECT treatments.
Patterson had to weaken his bill to ensure its passage.
The bill he originally introduced would have required that any
candidate for ECT receive a nonpsychiatric medical examination to
determine that the treatment would not cause significant injury or
death. It also would have made patients 65 or older ineligible for
ECT treatment.
Before winning approval of the bill, Patterson deleted provisions
that would have increased the reporting requirements on deaths
following ECT.
Patterson said the reports he eliminated would have required
brain tissue studies and other things that aren't necessary.
''The mission is to protect people. I think this will help do
that,'' he said of his bill.
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