Friday, February 21, 2014

A Reader Points To This Disturbing Article About New York State's Plan to Shut Down Mental Hospitals

What is especially disturbing is that if a Republican were considering this with respect to private prisons, it would be rightly identified as either ideological craziness or corruption:
Two trade associations representing New York’s community-based mental-health industry—Mental Health America (MHA) and the New York State Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS)—are eyeing the money Albany spends on inpatient psychiatric care and lobbying the Cuomo administration to close its state-run psychiatric hospitals. In January, New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued a partial reprieve to three of the nine state psychiatric hospitals he previously slated for closure. But the governor is moving ahead with plans to close other state psychiatric hospitals, which will force hundreds of seriously mentally ill patients into jails, shelters, prisons, and morgues. This will come at a high cost to taxpayers and put the public, the police, and the patients themselves at considerable risk. Just as Governor Cuomo would never cede control of tax policy to banking interests, he should not cede control of mental health policy to the mental-health industry. The hospitals should remain open.

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