Sununu issues order to ease mental health boarding in New Hampshire

(The Center Square) – New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is expanding mental health services in response to a court ruling that accused the state of “boarding” mental health patients who are awaiting beds in a state-run psychiatric facility.

Sununu signed an executive order late last week directing the state Department of Health and Human Services to increase access to mental health services and add more beds at state-run psychiatric facilities to reduce the number of patients being held involuntarily in emergency rooms while they await placement.

“There is an urgent need for the state to accelerate the work increasing the number of available beds for emergency psychiatric patients,” Sununu said at a news briefing.

Sununu’s order directs the state agency to “take immediate, targeted, and direct action to ensure there is a system in place to help individuals in mental health crisis have timely and appropriate medical care.” The order requires the agency to enact emergency rules and expand the number of available beds.

The move comes in response to a New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that psychiatric patients who are held as a result of a mental health crisis are entitled to have a court hearing within three days.

Sununu said the high court’s ruling “is an opportunity” to deal with obstacles to mental health services in the state.

“Some of these obstacles have been there for decades,” Sununu said. “Now that the Supreme Court has really weighed in, this is an opportunity to break down those barriers and get the services for our most vulnerable people.”

The high court’s ruling was in response to a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of a New Hampshire woman who spent weeks in a private hospital under involuntary commitment before she was admitted to a state-run mental health facility.

In its 18-page ruling, the high court said the woman’s rights had been violated because “she did not receive a probable cause hearing within three days of her admission.”

Under state law, patients are already required to have a court hearing on their commitment within three days. The state Department of Health and Human Services had argued that that requirement meant the three-day period kicked in once patients were checked into a psychiatric facility, but the Supreme Court’s justices rejected that argument.

Mental health advocates say the shortage of beds means that patients are “boarded” in private hospitals for weeks or months as they wait for an opening in a state-run facility.

As of Friday, there were at least 35 adults and 25 children waiting in New Hampshire for beds in a mental health treatment facility, according to state health data.

Democrats accused Sununu of mismanaging the issue and said he failed to implement changes to the mental health system approved by the state Legislature.

“The blunt reality is the failure to take action on the heartbreaking mental health crisis in NH is not a Democrat problem, it’s not a Republican problem, it’s a @GovChrisSununu problem,” Dan Feltes, a former New Hampshire Senate majority leader and 2020 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, posted on social media.

Sununu downplayed those claims and noted that the number of patients waiting for beds had been reduced to zero at one point but had ticked up again amid the pandemic.

“Today, unfortunately, we’re back in the position where we have a few dozen people waiting for mental health services in the emergency room,” Sununu said Thursday. “But we have never taken our eye off the ball.”

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