Maine Senate blocks LePage bid to move violent Riverview patients to prison
Source: Bangor Daily News
The Maine Senate likely doomed Gov. Paul LePage’s plan to house violent psychiatric patients at the Maine State Prison after opposing it by just one vote on Wednesday.
The Republican governor’s proposal drew heat from advocates as a violation of patients’ civil rights after it was announced in February, but it’s a response to issues at Riverview Psychiatric Center, which was decertified by the federal government in 2013.
LePage wants to move violent patients at the hospital to a 32-bed unit at the Maine State Prison in Warren that now treats people with mental illnesses in the state’s prison and jail systems.
But if it passed, the state would likely face a legal challenge: Daniel Wathen, the former Maine Supreme Judicial Court chief justice overseeing Maine’s compliance with a settlement in a 1989 lawsuit over mental health services, said LePage’s plan might violate that decree.
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Read more: http://stateandcapitol.bangordailynews.com/2016/04/06/maine-senate-blocks-lepage-bid-to-move-violent-riverview-patients-to-prison/
someone in the Blaine House needs to be moved to prison...
yup
= new reply since forum marked as read
