Tag: Maine

A recent newspaper article from the Associated Press of August 13, 2018, just a week prior to the posting of this article by Marina Villeneuve, highlighted an interesting development in the state of Maine. This psychiatric commentator felt this was worthy of attention on a larger stage as it illustrates several issues regarding the continuing struggles in this country to try to come to terms with our three decades old national mental health service delivery crisis.

The article entitled, “Company fights to keep details of Bangor psychiatric home a secret,” concern the efforts of the Republican governor of Maine Mr. LePage and a Florida-based company, Correct Care Solutions, to keep secret the disclosure of its contracts, legal arrangements, staffing patterns and cost proposals surrounding the construction and operation of a 21 bed “residential psychiatric home” apparently for less acute psychiatric adult patients. This psychiatric residential home is to be operated by this private corporation for at least 10 years. It is to be located on the state campus of the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor Maine for “some psychiatric patients who no longer need hospital care.” It appears as though there had been openly shared cordial agreement among the “Governor, lawmakers and (mental health) advocates” that the “secure residence could shorten waiting lists and ensure millions in jeopardized federal funding for a state psychiatric center that had lost federal certification” (in the recent past).

However apparently in the recent past, the previously shared intentions aims and objectives among the parties in Maine had run afoul of Correct Care’s wish to keep many of its issues, past history and proposals surrounding the construction of this facility secret. In spite of the fact that the company was notified by state agencies that all its proposals would be public documents, the company submitted many of its proposals amid expected secrecy or ‘confidence’ as the company termed it. But it did claim publicly is that its facility would cost taxpayers less in day-to-day per patient cost than the state’s two inpatient psychiatric centers. This is not a startling proposal as inpatient care is always much more expensive than non-hospital-based nonacute level care.