March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Court plans settlement for AMHI

AUGUSTA — The Augusta Mental Health Institute and an expansion of community services for former AMHI patients would be placed under the supervision of a court-appointed master as part of a proposed court settlement that was being put into final form Monday.

The plan, which will be the focus of a Superior Court hearing Thursday in Augusta, calls for Justice Bruce W. Chandler to appoint the master to oversee implementation of the plan. The master could not be dismissed without “good cause” and the state would pay his or her salary and expenses.

“I don’t see this as the end of the case. It’s really the beginning of the implementation,” said Richard M. Goldman, an Augusta lawyer who represents the Maine Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the dozen patients and former patients named as plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit.

Printing delays thwarted expectations that the plan would be available in printed form Monday. But a final draft of the 130-page proposal provided by Goldman revealed elaborate requirements for reducing the AMHI patient population and ensuring proper care for past, present and future patients.

If approved, it would apply to anyone who was a patient at AMHI on or after Jan. 1, 1988 — between 2,000 and 3,000 people at present, Goldman said.

Among the other highlights of the plan:

AMHI would be limited to 70 non-forensic patients by Aug. 1, 1995, with no more than 20 who require intermediate or skilled nursing care. The reduction would be phased in with new limits set annually, beginning with 200 non-forensic patients on Aug. 1, 1992. Currently, AMHI is licensed to hold 208 patients, although recent census counts have been substantially lower and officials have announced plans to close one of the 11 wards by mid-August.

State officials would be required to design a “comprehensive mental-health system,” guided by principles incorporated in the settlement that emphasize the desirability of services that allow patients to continue living in their communities in the least restrictive environment. A plan for establishing such a system would have to be in place by Jan. 1, 1991.

All members of the class covered by the settlement would be entitled to “individualized support plans,” or written assessments of their strengths, needs and goals, as well as the services they need to succeed. The plans would be supervised by community-support workers, who would be provided through the state Mental Health Department and “accessible geographically to all class members” no later than Sept. 1, 1995.

The state would have to finance various types of housing assistance, either at patients’ homes or group homes, residential support services and 24-hour crisis intervention services. Also, the state would have to make “reasonable efforts” to provide local hospital services for patients requiring acute care and job counseling and training programs.

By agreeing to the settlement, which took a year to negotiate, the state did not admit any violations of law at AMHI.

The proposal also contains an acknowledgement by all parties that this case ” is one of first impression for the courts of the state of Maine and that there exists uncertainty and ambiguity as to the questions of law that form the basis of the claims in this action.”

Mental Health Commissioner Robert W. Glover was not available in his office or at home Monday. AMHI Superintendent Linda Breslin did not return telephone calls to her office.

The MCLU was one of four advocacy groups that originally filed suit in February 1989, alleging that AMHI patients were being denied adequate medical care, given too many drugs and unnecessarily locked in seclusion.


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