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Lexington Herald Leader
MENTAL HEALTH MEASURE ADVANCES
Kentuckians would be entitled to sign an advance directive indicating what kinds of mental health treatment they prefer, under House Bill 99, approved by the House Health and Welfare Committee yesterday. The bill allows people with mental health conditions to voice their feelings on certain treatments, choose whether they want electroconvulsive or "shock" therapy, and designate someone to make sure their wishes are carried out when they show up for treatment in a crisis, said Sheila Schuster, director of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition.
The Health and Welfare Committee also approved bills to hire full-time ombudsmen throughout the state, to reactivate the Task Force on Quality Long Term Care, and to require state public policy to take into consideration options that would help the disabled and frail elderly to live at home rather than in institutions.
HOMEMADE-GOODS EXEMPTION
A bill approved by the Agriculture and Small Business Committee yesterday would exempt makers of homemade jams, jellies, bread, cakes, cookies and fruit pies from obtaining permits to sell their goodies at farmers' markets, roadside stands or from their homes. Such producers would have to meet sanitation standards, and their goods would have to be properly labeled.
Rep. Charlie Hoffman, D-Georgetown, chief sponsor of House Bill 391, said lifting the permitting requirements would allow Kentucky's farm families to diversify without the hindrance of expensive upgrades.
FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES
A bill that would have created a "Faith-Based Community Development Initiative Program," to support and finance religious organizations' services for low- and moderate-income people will instead simply study the feasibility of establishing the program. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Paul Bather, D-Louisville, told a House panel yesterday that there was too much confusion about the implementation of his bill to leave it as it was. The committee passed the substituted version of the bill, House Bill 119.