Bridgewater lawsuit on care of mentally ill moving forward. Hannibal Lecter Cage used in three patie
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A Superior Court judge has allowed a lawsuit against the state to proceed on grounds that conditions at troubled Bridgewater State Hospital may violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, a ruling that underscores the controversial use of seclusion and restraints at the facility.
The lawsuit, filed by the families of three former Bridgewater patients, claims that officials discriminate against the most severely mentally ill men in the state by consigning them to a facility run by the Department of Correction rather than one administered by the Department of Mental Health, where trained clinicians maintain policies designed to restrict the use of seclusion and restraints and provide higher-quality mental health care.
Attorney General Maura Healey had argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it does not claim that mental health patients held at Bridgewater are denied benefits available to persons who are not mentally ill — the traditional means of proving discrimination under the Disabilities Act — and because they are not treated “any differently from similarly situated inmates who are not mentally disabled.”
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