DMH Lawbreaking on Display!

A Note to New Supporters: What I Witnessed This Week, DMH is Breaking State Law, What Happens Next.

Hello Human Family, 

Thank you for standing with us for justice for CaSonya, Haywood, Jean, and countless other psychiatric patients suffering in Massachusetts Department of Mental Health wards. My name is And Steiner. I have spent over seven years in psychiatric hospitals, five of them in DMH care for severe suicidality. 

Day after day, I have witnessed human rights abuses and a near-total lack of accountability. When I learned about Jean and saw my own story reflected in hers, I knew I had to act. After discovering what happened to Haywood and CaSonya, that determination became this petition.

I still remember when we reached 48 signatures! I texted all my family and friends, excited that nearly 50 people cared so much about patients in Massachusetts! So often patients feel like we have no voice. Now, we are nearly at 5000 signatures. 5000 people from all over the world have come forward to say: this is enough. Psychiatric patients are people and deserve the same human rights and right to life that we all have.

What I Witnessed this Week

My care has improved after 4 years of advocacy from me and countless others, although the systemic nature of this abuse is intolerable to witness. Just a few days ago, I was making beaded necklaces with a friend and fellow patient. We sat there chatting away in happy conversation, a rare moment of peace and ease on these units.

We looked up and saw about 20 staff members, mostly large men, gathering in the hallway, putting on gloves and wheeling restraints into the quiet room. No patient had shown agitation. My friend, who has a history of severe PTSD and heart disease, was called into the conference room under threat of restraint before he had exhibited a single sign of agitation. He had called the police earlier this week because a nurse refused to give him his ordered heart medication. The ensuing restraint lasted over six hours. Staff administered a medication flagged as an allergy on his chart, his heart required emergency medication from the stress, and he sustained physical injuries. Let’s not let this be like every other illegal restraint I’ve witnessed at DMH: without a shred of accountability!

We are going to change that. Your support is the starting point. Regardless of whether the decision makers listed in this petition act, we intend, as mentioned under Our Vision, to start a patient-led, community-driven grassroots organization that will hold these institutions accountable when no one else will.

DMH Is Breaking State Law

DMH will not hesitate to violate the law. This lawlessness is on full display in the new visitor policies issued by the Office of Inpatient Management. Massachusetts General Law Chapter 123 Section 23 (c) guarantees psychiatric patients the right to daily private visits unless there is a serious disruption. DMH's new policy requires staff to observe all visits at all times, which directly violates that right. Because of this requirement, hospitals like Lemuel Shattuck have implemented new visitor policies that have:

• Visits slashed to one hour

• Appointment-only scheduling through a social worker

• Visitation windows severely restricted

These further restrictions also violated our rights under the law that ensure that visiting hours be sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of both the person being visited and the visitor.

I average two visitors a month. Both travel over two hours each way. Under this policy, they will get one hour, observed, cutting my visitation by 80 percent. My out-of-state visitors will be blocked entirely. For patients whose families live as far away as California, this effectively ends visits.

Some state hospitals have gone as stating there can be only 3 visitation for the entire unit per day. Four patients have visitors in a day? Too bad. These hospitals will violate the section of this law that guarantees all patients daily visits.

Patients, advocates and their loved one’s have been complaining for years that the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health regularly violates law and has little to no accountability. Now that DMH has done so plainly for the world to see in these new visitors policies, the question beckons: what other laws do they think they can ignore?

To Attorney General Campbell, Governor Healey, and the MCAD: you have the authority to investigate these deaths, these civil rights violations, and this pattern of neglect. We are not asking for sympathy. We are demanding action.

What Happens Next

If you have already signed, thank you. Now help us keep the pressure on: share this petition on your social media, email it to your friends, and ask them to add their names before the week is out.

Your Human Family Member,

-And Steiner