See: Bridgewater Story Leaves Me Broken-Hearted
I may be overlooking that when I list all the failures of this administration over eight years. there are so many of them. DCF, Dookhan, websites, heroin crisis, off the top of my head. Then there are the policy problems which I've enumerated for years. Never been a change.
"Patrick unveils overhaul for Bridgewater hospital; Wants more staff, additional facility" by Michael Rezendes | Globe Staff June 18, 2014
Yeah, he's been pushing improvements after eight years of.... never mind.
Governor Deval Patrick unveiled an ambitious and potentially costly plan Tuesday to reform the way the state’s criminal justice system handles mentally ill people, proposing a dramatic increase in staff at troubled Bridgewater State Hospital and a new facility where potentially violent patients could receive care.
The plan, expected to cost $12.3 million in the short term and far more over the long term, calls for Massachusetts to move away from treating mentally ill people as prisoners and more like patients.
Do I really have to say anything about "liberal, compassionate, Democrat" Massachusetts?
Call me ill, but the close ties to Israel and the functioning as a little laboratory for their agenda pushing really rubbed off.
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The proposal would move many patients at Bridgewater, a medium-security prison, to less restrictive facilities. It declares that mentally ill people “should receive the appropriate care in the appropriate setting.” At least 100 of the 300 inmates at Bridgewater are being held there while awaiting trial and are not serving criminal sentences.
Patrick’s proposal, which follows a series of Globe articles on the often-harsh treatment of Bridgewater patients, drew praise from advocates for the mentally ill after months of intense criticism, as well as a class action lawsuit filed against the state on behalf of patients.
Yeah, a kid was actually killed while in state care, but.... you know.
Specifically, the plan calls for new spending in several areas....
Yeah, throw money at it after it happens and it will hopefully go away.
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Related: Patrick headlines service on leadership
??????
As if he is qualified?
"A warning, a delayed repair, a patient dies; Too late, mental health agency fixed windows" by Liz Kowalczyk | Globe Staff June 22, 2014
The manager of a state-owned psychiatric hospital repeatedly pressed her superiors to replace dozens of breakable glass windows with safer plastic — once when she discovered the hazard in January 2013, and again six months later, after a patient with schizophrenia made the need obvious by hurling a chair through a window.
But state mental health officials told her there was no money for the fix, according to an account she later gave investigators. Then, just before Christmas, that same patient smashed an eighth-floor window at the Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller Mental Health Center — and jumped to his death.
The funds were approved the next day.
I don't even want to get into it anymore. I'm tired of typing the priorities of budget-makers on Beacon Hill when it comes down to basically this (from front to back of line): debt interest payments to lenders and bondholders; corporate subsidies; politically-padded pension and benefit packages as well as current funding to maintain lavish lifestyles; and whatever is left over for the rest of us who paid it in. they may have it for services, they may not.
I'm sure whatever happens they will have plenty of excuses at the ready as they sell you another tax or fee increase somewhere.
This critical delay was described by federal inspectors who investigated the apparent suicide of Andrew Puchalow on Dec. 11. The 56-year-old, who had long suffered paranoid delusions and been institutionalized, landed on the roof of a smaller building five stories below in Boston’s South End.
The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found the hospital did not provide safe care in this case.
A hospital committee had discussed the need for safety windows in patient community rooms at least five times since January 2013, according to the federal report, which was obtained by the Globe through a public records request. Even after a memo went to a deputy commissioner at the Department of Mental Health in July, explaining that a patient had recently smashed a window, the glass panes remained.
Advocates for the mentally ill said the holdup is a tragic example of the chronic underfunding of psychiatric hospitals....
Look, if it isn't going to Israel, Wall Street, the war machine, well-connected corporations, or the high-maintenance of the political cla$$, get lo$t.
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Guys will drive you cra$y.
