Mom to lawmakers: 'He's not just a number, OK?'

Sept. 19--CONCORD -- Lawmakers heard impassioned and sometimes tearful appeals last week by family members whose mentally ill loved ones are locked up in the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the state prison even though they've committed no crime.

They urged members of a legislative study committee to endorse a bill filed by State Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, which would force the state to find alternatives.

"Our connection to our loved one, who is mentally ill, is significantly impacted, and I would respectfully argue this is not just a handful of folks," said Melissa Sullivan. "They are patients who have not been found guilty of anything other than being mentally ill and incompetent."

Under Cushing's bill, HB 1541, the state would be prohibited from placing such patients in the Secure Psychiatric Unit (SPU) and would be required to place them "in a therapeutic institution in this state or in another state."

It was standing room only in the hearing room at the Legislative Office Building on Wednesday, as family members and even a former patient of the SPU came to speak in the hope of influencing the committee vote.

They were disappointed, however, as the study committee voted 5-1 to recommend that the Legislature take no further action on Cushing's bill. The vote came before a single member of the public had a chance to speak.

Committee co-chair State Rep. Jim MacKay, D-Concord, told the crowd that they were attending the work session of a study committee, not a public hearing on pending legislation, and that the committee was not under any obligation to hear public comment.

But as a courtesy, the committee heard about an hour of stark and sometimes disturbing testimony. Family members claimed their loved ones in the SPU have been denied everything from essential medication to toilet paper.

They talked of having their mail screened and having to go through criminal background checks to visit their loved ones; having their cameras confiscated, and watching patients escorted around in handcuffs and chains.

"Yesterday, my brother turned 23," said Sullivan, choking back tears. "I couldn't send him a birthday card and I couldn't go to see him. He has an inmate number and we were provided an inmate handbook. We have to follow inmate visitation procedures. He is treated like an inmate and he has not been convicted or found guilty of anything."

Medication denied

Sullivan said her brother is denied anti-anxiety medication in his treatment plan because it has too high a street value in the prison; is limited to one roll of toilet paper a week; and is not allowed to have a pillow or a weighted blanket, which are available at New Hampshire Hospital, because "it could be misused by a prisoner."

"He is led around in handcuffs and chains when he misbehaves," she said. "It's a horrible, horrible situation."

Sullivan, who worked for years as an employee of the Department of Health and Human Services, said she understands that the problems of the SPU have to be evaluated in the context of the broader mental health system in the state. "I understand the big picture and the big picture is mentally ill patients do not belong in a correctional facility," she said.

Committee co-chair Kendall Snow, D-Manchester, alluded to the bigger picture when he spoke against Cushing's legislation, arguing that it has too narrow a focus.

The quality of staff treating patients at the SPU is equal to the staff at the New Hampshire Hospital, he said, and the number of patients in the unit who have not been criminally adjudicated is small, ranging from five to 10 people at a time.

The state faces a greater mental health challenge in dealing with the 20 to 50 patients who are being warehoused at any given time in hospital emergency rooms because the state lacks sufficient beds at New Hampshire Hospital, he said: "We need to expand our focus on the entire problem."

Disturbing visits

Those comments came as no comfort to Ruth Burke, the mother of a son, now 34, who was first sent to the SPU when he was 22 for smashing a TV in his doctor's office, she said.

"I didn't even know what the SPU was," she said. "The doctor assured me it would only be a couple weeks; it was nine months." His longest hospitalization or incarceration, depending on your point of view, was from 2012 to 2015.

"Oftentimes, I'd have to talk to him through the glass," Burke said. "If he was on certain wards, we could not even have visitation."

On one visit, she found her son alone in a room in the prison infirmary.

"He was naked. He didn't even know who I was," she said, trying to retain her composure. "He was moving a plastic mattress around the room. That's all he did for weeks and weeks and months and months. It took eight months until they said he was ready to go back to New Hampshire Hospital."

On another visit, she barely recognized him as he approached the visiting room. "His shirt was filthy; his feet were coming through his shoes; his toenails were so long they were digging into the soles of his feet," she said.

After several admissions, discharges and readmissions, Burke concluded that the only way to get her son out of the New Hampshire psychiatric system and the SPU was to move out of state.

She and her husband, who is retired, sold their lifelong home in Salem and moved to Massachusetts, where her son is being treated in a community setting. "In Massachusetts, my son has not had one hospitalization," she said.

'Nothing like a hospital'

Shelly Raza took a tri-fold poster to the center of the U-shaped meeting table so that all the lawmakers could see a collage of her son's photos over the years and understand that "He is a real person."

"This is 97166," Raza said. "He's not just a number. OK? He has a family that loves him."

Raza told of how her camera was confiscated as she tried to take a picture of her son on his birthday, and that she was threatened with a felony arrest.

"It's nothing like a hospital," she said. "For one thing, I would not be facing a felony for taking a picture of my son on his birthday, and I would be able to see him more than once a week through glass."

Paula Mattis, director of medical and forensic services at the Department of Corrections, runs the SPU. She urged the family members to bring concerns directly to her.

"I want to assure people that we take any allegation, any whisper of abuse to our patients and inmates at the SPU very seriously," she said. "I spend a lot of time reviewing records, reviewing videos and talking to people. We have an investigative unit that helps us with that."

Cushing has joined patient advocacy groups in calling for a civil rights investigation of the SPU by the U.S. Department of Justice. The complaint to the Special Litigation Section in the U.S. Department of Justice was filed on Aug. 11.

dsolomon@unionleader.com

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