RICHMOND – The mother of a man who died last year while in law-enforcement custody at Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County had one simple request of a group of state lawmakers.
Caroline Ouko reminded a House Courts of Justice subcommittee Monday that Gov. Glenn Youngkin was asking for unanimous support of the proposal dubbed “Irvo’s Law” in her son’s memory.
“Please,” Ouko said at the end of her testimony, “make it happen.”
House Bill 1242 would allow family members and caregivers of patients in medical crisis unfettered access to their loved ones during emergency treatment. It was given the name Irvo’s Law after Henrico County resident Irvo Noel Otieno.
The bill’s sponsor, Del. Rodney Willett, D-Henrico, said it acknowledges “the vital role that family members or legal guardian in facilitating informed decision-making and support during a mental-health emergency while also improving short-term and long-term mental-health outcomes.”
Otieno was 28 years old on March 3, 2023, when Henrico County police officers acting on an allegation of neighborhood burglary took him to Parham Doctors Hospital under an emergency custody order. Ouko, his mother and primary caregiver, said she “pleaded” with emergency-room personnel at Parham Doctors to let her back there with her son “who was calling for me.”