Developing an Advocacy Campaign

Enactment of the New Legislation 

Policymaking in healthcare is a necessary activity that can be used in the process of formulating new principles that concern the medical field. Government legislation forms a critical ground for interventions and responses (Milstead, 2019). Developing a new policy on suicide is, therefore, necessary if suicide must be countered. Though the existing policy on preventing and handling suicide in the country has been something to go and has helped in containing levels of suicide in the nation, the laws have very little coverage of intervention programs. The existing legislation however only concentrate on funding of anti-suicide programs and their implementation in only some institutions such as in school. There is however a very little coverage of the actual victims and patients. 

The policy that I would like to promote can only be achieved if wholly new legislation would be made concerning the handling of cases of suicide and the corresponding medical intervention. A new intervention for people who are likely to get engaged in suicide or those who have been involved in suicide would be handled would be a fair policy. The policy would first require a huge understanding of the reasons that could have pushed the individual to resolve to suicide as the last solace. The Coalition for Patient’s Rights (CPR) appreciates that the rights of patients are necessary to be heard. Patients have over time been subjected to limited rights especially when they are handled by non-physician healthcare providers (Coalition for Patients’ Rights, 2012). Therefore, in the very first place, the policy will require that any other authority does not just handle all matters concerning patients or individuals who are involved in suicide or attempted suicide without adequate examination by established medical practitioners who would have an understanding of the mental and general health of the individuals before they are presented to other authorities.

Development of new legislation concerning patients involved in attempted suicide must be based on managed care. Managed care is the inculcation of techniques of analysis such that the administrative control of patients of rescued or attempted suicide is handled by the medical fraternity (University of Washington School of Medicine, n.d). Often, instances of attempted suicide are handled as criminal offenses whereby the involved individuals are not given the fair hearing and investigation. In the case that there are medical examinations that are carried out, they are conducted under the influence of the authorities, and thus most of the results are altered or are made to suit the desires of the concerned authorities. Under managed care, however, the authorities will be required to hand over cases of attempted suicide to competent physicians. The costs of the process would be accounted for by the government but would however be on a discounted price. The induction of the policy, therefore, would not be an improvement of the existing laws but would be a wholly new enactment of new legislation.  

Effect of Existing Laws on Advocacy Efforts

The establishment of the new intervention will however not be an easy task seeing that they are already legislation in place that would hinder the instituting of the legislation by the legislators as well as the execution of the legislation. One of the legislation that would hinder the new legislation is the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (GLSMA). GLSMA is an Act of Congress that came to be in 2003 after the son of Senator Gordon Smith who was in campus committed suicide. It is an intervention program that has lived for a quite long period. The Act was a federal program that was made to provide grants to youths and college students using various avenues (“GARRETT LEE SMITH YOUTH SUICIDE EARLY INTERVENTION AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES NATIONAL OUTCOMES EVALUATION Fiscal Year 2017 Report to Congress June 2018”, 2018). The Act provides for channeling of finances to various authorities that are inclusive of institutions, states, and tribes which then conduct the process of assessing the mental conditions of the students and advising them accordingly. The new legislation would, however, reduce the influence of the Act and hence resistance is expected.

The Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (JOVSPA) on the other hand is another legislation that would hinder the execution of the proposed legislation. It is an Act of Congress that was introduced and which seeks to take care of veterans to reduce the instances of veterans engaging in suicide (“H.R.327 – 110th Congress (2007-2008): Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act”, 2008). The Act would hinder the acceptance of the new policy as the legislators would be concerned how the new legislation would take care of veterans who engage in suicide like the JOVSPA intervention would do. Seeing that the Congress and the administration of the United States has of late been critically viewing the issues of veterans, then the proposed policy would look like one that is opposed to the JOVSPA Act and hence imminent resistance.

How to influence Legislators

The proposed Act is, however, an all-around Act that looks at the issue of suicide not from a delocalized side but a comprehensive view. It is a better framework that could serve all the people that are affected by suicide and hence it would be a better framework that could be used for all people unlike the disintegrated interventions in the present. I would, therefore, urge the legislators to view suicide as a universal problem and hence support the Act seeing that it could benefit all Americans. The proposed Act once established would be such a necessary legal intervention that could change the scope of suicide in the United States.

Conclusion 

The proposed legislation is not an amendment of an existing legislation but rather a legislation that will be enacted as a wholly new law. Using the new legislation, issues that regard suicide can be handled in a better manner than they are handled currently. It will be a legislation that will revolve around the needs of the patients as well as enhancing managed care of the survivors of suicide as well as people who would think of engaging in it. There are however current legislations that my hinder legislators from acknowledging the new legislation which are mainly the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (GLSMA) and the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act (JOVSPA). By showing the legislators the need to make an all-round policy to handle matters of suicide would however help in convincing the legislators to make what would be the greatest anti-suicide policy in the United States. 

References

 Coalition for Patients’ Rights. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.patientsrightscoalition.org/

GARRETT LEE SMITH YOUTH SUICIDE EARLY INTERVENTION AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES NATIONAL OUTCOMES EVALUATION Fiscal Year 2017 Report to Congress June 2018. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.sprc.org/sites/default/files/resource-program/GarrettLeeSmithEvaluationReportToCongress.FY2017pdf.pdf

H.R.327 – 110th Congress (2007-2008): Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act. (2008). Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-bill/327

Milstead, J. A. (2019). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide (6th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

University of Washington School of Medicine. (n.d.) Ethics in medicine: Managed care. Retrieved from http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/manag.html