Agencies, Activists Sound Off on Mental Health Lawsuit

Earlier this week, a class action lawsuit between the state of New Hampshire and individuals with serious mental illness who had not received proper healthcare was settled. The state of New Hampshire has agreed to expand its services to 450 housing units to serve 1,500 people. Here is some of the reaction to the settlement: 

The Disabilities Rights Center: 

“Today’s settlement agreement is a real leap forward in the renewal of New Hampshire’s commitment to community-based mental health services,” said Amy Messer, Legal Director of the Disabilities Rights Center and counsel for the plaintiff class.  “Thousands of individuals with serious mental illness will now get the services and supports they need and want to live full, meaningful, and productive lives in the community.” 

Plaintiff Mandy D. (age 24) agreed, happy that participating in the lawsuit is helping more people get housing and services so that they can live independently in the community.

“Access to community based mental health services has long been proven to eliminate or reduce the needless institutionalization of people with serious mental illness,” said Dan Will of Devine Millimet. “Community services not only lead to a higher quality of life for individuals with disabilities but are also far less costly than institutional care.”

“Addressing our deeply strained mental health system is one of the most pressing challenges facing our state. Recognizing that the safety of our communities and the health and well-being of individual citizens depend upon our efforts to strengthen mental health care services, we came together this year to significantly increase funding for community-based mental health care in our bipartisan budget.

“Our budget expands access to acute care beds, adds a new designated receiving facility, adds community residence beds, provides subsidies for housing and support services, adds 10 Assertive Community Treatment Teams to assist people in crisis, and increases other community support services.

“The settlement agreement reached today builds on the progress made in our bipartisan budget by further enhancing community-based mental health services and increasing crisis-support services, helping to address the continued trend of acute mental health cases at our hospitals’ emergency rooms. 

“Reaching this settlement also ensures that we can continue addressing our mental health challenges in a fiscally responsible way that protects the state’s budget and that ensures that New Hampshire citizens are driving improvements in our mental health system – not federal judges. Continuing the lawsuit would undoubtedly have cost the state millions of dollars in legal fees and untold millions more per year if the state had not prevailed in its case.

“Moving forward, I will work with Senate President Morse, Speaker Norelli and all legislators to identify the resources needed to meet the terms of this agreement in order to continue strengthening mental health care for all Granite Staters. I thank Attorney General Foster and his office, U.S. Attorney Kacavas, and representatives of the DRC for working constructively to reach a settlement agreement.”

Speaker Terie Norelli: 

“The New Hampshire House has been clear that recognizing the seriousness of the strain placed on our state’s mental health system is urgent and reducing that strain is one of our priorities. We made great strides with funding increases in the 2014/2015 biennial budget and will continue to work to aggressively address the issues, strengthening the health of our communities and citizens.”

“This settlement agreement continues the path of progress that began with the improvements in the budget and provides long term stability and protection to our taxpayers. I look forward to working with Governor Hassan and Senate President Morse to take the appropriate legislative actions in support of this settlement.”

Jay Couture, president of the NH Community Behavioral Health Association:

“The settlement that was issued yesterday is a meaningful milestone in the important fight to address New Hampshire’s mental health crisis. In the days to come, we will be closely examining both the substance of and process around the settlement. As New Hampshire’s non-profit direct care organizations that work every day with those who live with mental illness, the community mental health centers are fully committed to working with the State and others to continue to improve the community mental health system.  Now that the court case has moved into a more public phase, we are eager to evaluate the settlement provisions and make sure they meet the needs of the community-based system of care and can be implemented in a fashion that will strengthen that system.  Although there was significant funding for mental health services and for implementation of the Ten-Year Mental Health Plan appropriated for the current biennium, additional work needs to be done to ensure that all our citizens get the most appropriate, timely and least restrictive care when they need mental health services.”