Interestingly, a recent series of investigative reports from WCVB Channel 5 in Boston featured an interview with DMH Commissioner of Mental Health Joan Mikula (who has often been very receptive to our input) during which she offered the following:
“The Department of Mental Health operates hospitals not prisons. There is more than a fine line between assuring that you have the right security and assuring that you have the kind of appropriate healing space where people can be treated”.
However, many have questioned that sentiment, referring to the new restrictions as explicitly “prison-like”, and wondering if Bridgewater (which is basically a prison) may not now be a better place to land, given that they at least seem to have more programming with which to help people stay occupied. It’s also worth noting that, in the same series, it was revealed that sometimes cleaning and kitchen staff who have little to no experience offering support are pulled in during times of low staffing to work directly with people hospitalized there.
Note that none of the restrictions we’ve heard so far apply directly to the staff, although it is far from unheard of that employees would have a role in bringing drugs into a facility of this nature.
Conclusion:
There is a serious need for transparency as to what is going on in the Commonwealth’s purportedly “state-of-the-art” mental health facility that cost Massachusetts $305 million just to build. Although excuses have historically been made about how the money wouldn’t have been able to go to community supports even if it wasn’t used to build a new hospital, we remain skeptical and want answers.
Perhaps most importantly, we are concerned at what’s being missed in this flurry of restrictive measures (and in news coverage focusing on violence): The research says hospitalizations hurt. The research says that hospitalizations lead to increases in suicide rates. The research says that hospitalizations lead to increases in deaths due to overdose. The research says that loss of power and attempts to control people increase violence. And, the research (and the many years of first-hand experience we hold between us) says that people who are locked up, told they are sick, told they are patients, told they have no freedoms, and who are left contained without any of the things they enjoy or that make life worth living will act accordingly.