Maine health commissioner summoned to contempt hearing over delayed hospital beds for defendants found incompetent
Michael Whitten, 24, of Sanford had been held in the York County Jail for about a month after a judge found him incompetent to stand trial and ordered him admitted to Riverview Psychiatric Center on March 23. His attorney, Amy Fairfield, told the court that the hospital was refusing to take him despite the order, and her firm had two other incompetent clients facing misdemeanors in the same position. Commissioner Mary Mayhew and Riverview Superintendent Jay Harper were subpoenaed to appear before a York County Superior Court justice on May 5, 2015.
According to the Press Herald, the attorney said the hospital had dozens of open beds yet only a handful set aside for patients sent by criminal courts. Riverview had lost its federal Medicare certification in 2013, along with roughly $20 million a year in federal funding, after inspections found problems such as improper use of stun guns and weak treatment practices.
The case is an early example of a recurring Maine pattern in which defendants ruled incompetent wait in county jails for a forensic bed while the state hospital's capacity and staffing problems play out around them.
Source: Maine DHHS chief ordered to contempt hearing over mental hospital admissions — Portland Press Herald, by Scott Dolan
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