Amendment #76 to H4860

PTSD Disability for First Responders

Mr. Robertson of Tewksbury moves to amend the bill, as amended, Chapter 32 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 94B the following section:-

Section 94C. (a) “Post-traumatic stress disorder”, a disorder that meets the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress, specified by the American Psychiatric Association in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders, or most recently published edition.

“Mental health professional”, a person with professional training, experience and demonstrated competence in the treatment and diagnosis of mental conditions, who is certified or licensed to provide mental health care services and for whom diagnosis of mental conditions are within their scope of practice, including a physician, nurse with recognized psychiatric specialties, psychiatrist, psychologist, clinical social worker, mental health counselor or alcohol and drug abuse counselor.

(b) Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary relative to the non-contributory or contributory retirement system, any condition of impairment of health caused by post-traumatic stress disorder or mental impairment diagnosed by a mental health professional resulting in total or partial disability or death of: (1) a full-time uniformed member of a paid police department, paid fire department, paid municipal emergency medical service department, the police department of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the state police or the public works building police, (2) any employee in the department of correction or a county correctional facility whose regular or incidental duties require the care, supervision or custody of prisoners, criminally insane persons or defective delinquents, (3) any permanent crash crewmen, crash boatman, fire controlman or assistant fire controlman employed at the General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport, (4) the members of the 104th fighter wing fire department or (5) members of the Massachusetts military reservation fire department, shall if they successfully passed a physical examination on entry into said service, which examination failed to reveal any evidence of said condition, shall be presumed to have been suffered in the line of duty, unless it is shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the post-traumatic stress or mental impairment was caused by non-service connected risk factors or non-service connected exposure.

Additional co-sponsor(s) added to Amendment #76 to H4860

PTSD Disability for First Responders