Several months back, the Office of Inpatient Management (OIM) for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Several months back, the Office of Inpatient Management (OIM) for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) issued a shocking new policy on visitors at its state-run hospitals.
One of its most troubling provisions is the requirement that all visits be observed by staff at all times.
But the problems don’t stop there.
Likely because of the requirement to observe all visits and the expectation that each state hospital would create its own policy detailing how it would implement the OIM guidelines, we’ve started to hear about and see policies including:
- Visits by appointment only (scheduled through the social worker)
- Drastically reduced visiting hours
- Significant reductions in allowable length of visits
- No more than three visits per day for the entire unit
In some ways, these new policies may feel familiar to people in other states. Psychiatric oppression is, after all, rampant across the country and beyond.
Massachusetts law has protected these visitation rights in DMH-operated, contracted, and licensed programs and facilities since 1997 through the Six Fundamental Rights statute.
The conflict with the law begins with the observation requirement itself: Massachusetts law expressly guarantees the right to receive visitors “daily and in private.”
Other parts of the law that appear to conflict with the new rules include:
- That a person has the right to receive visitors daily (which may be impossible if required to schedule through a social worker or if a unit imposes a limit of only three visits per day for the entire unit)
- That visiting hours be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the individual needs and desires of both the person being visited and their visitors (which raises serious questions about drastically reduced, across-the-board visiting windows)
- That visiting hours may be limited only to protect the privacy of others or avoid “serious disruptions” to the normal functioning of the facility or program (which raises serious questions about broad, across-the-board restrictions imposed for administrative convenience or staffing limitations)
Why does it seem so easy for DMH to enact policies that directly conflict with the law?
Although violations of the Six Fundamental Rights have been widespread and longstanding, these policies eliminate any plausible deniability that the violations are merely isolated mistakes or failures of individual facilities.
Roots Up has been collecting policies through requests under the Massachusetts Public Records Law and is still waiting for additional documents from the applicable facilities.
Once we have more of the policies, we will share them all with you, provide additional information about related violations, and offer ideas on action steps.
DMH should be held accountable for following the law.
How will you get involved in holding them accountable?
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