Last week, a watchdog group released a damning report about the Massachusetts Department of Corrections’ Bridgewater State Hospital — a psychiatric hospital for men who have been accused or convicted of a crime. Major changes could be in store for the hospital in coming months.
The 46-page report from Disability Law Center — a Boston-based disability advocacy nonprofit — alleges a litany of eye-popping patient abuses at the hospital, including involuntary restraint through medication, physical violence from staff, seclusion for all but a handful of hours and negligent medical care.
Patient stories in the report made Bridgewater State Hospital sound like the psychiatric hospitals of a previous era that are now most often featured in horror media. The nonprofit detailed accounts of patients being dragged to a bed to be forcibly injected with a restraint drug, left alone and naked in their room for weeks and wasting away with little to no medical or mental health care in a dangerously moldy and decrepit building.
Conditions at the hospital are so bad and have persisted for so long that it needs to be shuttered for the sake of both patient and staff safety, Disability Law Center argued in the report. In its place, the nonprofit said, the state should open a new, modern facility under the control of the Department of Mental Health.
Why many want a shift in control of the hospital
A shift in jurisdiction over Bridgewater State Hospital would come with meaningful changes, according to the nonprofit. The hospital would become subject to the mental health department’s regulations and policies, which would, for instance, require hospital staff to regularly report on how many hours prisoners are secluded.
Some state legislators appear to be in favor of this change, as there is a bill going through the Massachusetts Legislature that would put it into law. Rep. Ruth Balser, D-12th Middlesex, introduced the bill in the state House of Representatives in February 2023, and Sen. Cynthia Stone Cream, D-Norfolk and Middlesex, introduced a partner bill in the state Senate at the same time.
In a letter supporting the bill, Balser cited previous scathing reports from Disability Law Center as the onus for handing Bridgewater State Hospital and its units in Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater over to the Department of Mental Health.
“Both physical structures resemble prisons, not hospitals, and the patients reside in former cells. According to the DLC, Massachusetts is one of only two states where a correctional agency, and not the state’s mental health authority, runs a forensic hospital of this kind. Additionally, unlike hospitals overseen by the DMH, BSH is not actually accredited as a hospital,” she wrote. “Those who struggle with severe mental illness need and deserve health care treatment, not punishment.”
So far, the bills seem to be gaining support, as 16 other representatives and three other state senators have signed on to them. On March 11, the State Administration and Regulatory Oversight Committee reported favorably on Balser’s bill and referred it to the Health Care Financing Committee. Stone Cream’s bill is still waiting for a hearing with the Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery Committee.
Why the change hasn’t happened yet
So far, none of Bridgewater’s state legislators — Rep. Angelo D’Amilia, R-8th Plymouth, and Sen. Walter Timilty, D-Norfolk, Plymouth, and Bristol — have officially backed the bills. Additionally, effectively identical bills have been introduced in the Legislature every session going back as far as 2017 but have never become law.
The last two bills died in the Senate Ways and Means Committee — which controls monetary appropriations in the Legislature — after being reported on favorably by the mental health committee. The committee’s chair, Sen. Michael Rodrigues, D-1st Bristol and Plymouth, did not immediately respond to a comment on this Tuesday morning.
When asked Tuesday whether the Department of Mental Health would support being handed jurisdiction over Bridgewater State Hospital, the department said it “would meet any new organizational or operational requirements” that the Legislature directs them to. Similarly, Gov. Maura Healey’s Office did not indicate support or opposition to such a change in a statement Tuesday, simply saying that the governor would review any legislation that makes it to her desk.
But in a statement Tuesday, the Department of Corrections gave no indication that it plans to give jurisdiction over the hospital to the mental health department. On Monday, the department asserted that it has implemented many meaningful changes at Bridgewater State Hospital since Disability Law Center’s monitoring period ended in December 2023.
These changes include increased tracking of restraint usage, daily reviews of recorded restraint instances and the hiring of two new mental health professionals to help lead the hospital, according to the corrections department. The department has also reviewed its seclusion, restraint and involuntary medication policies and instituted additional staff training on deescalation techniques to reduce the need for seclusion and restraint.
The other big change that could come for Bridgewater State Hospital is a change in its healthcare provider company. Since 2018, Tennessee-based healthcare company Wellpath has contracted with the Department of Corrections to service over a dozen state institutions — including Bridgewater State Hospital, but the hospital’s contract is up at the end of June 2025, according to the department.
The hospital’s contract was originally set to expire in June 2024, but it was later extended, the corrections department said Tuesday. Still, Wellpath has already lost contracts with two sheriff’s departments, and many more of its contracts with the corrections department currently still expire in June 2024, so the company’s future with Massachusetts agencies is uncertain, according to The Boston Globe.
Notably, before Wellpath’s introduction, Bridgewater State Hospital faced lawsuits over the use of physical restraints and seclusion, Rep. Balser noted in her letter. Wellpath’s predecessor, Correct Care Recovery Solutions, successfully tamped down on these coercive control methods after former Gov. Charlie Baker demanded change in the mid 2010s, according to the Globe.
But in 2018, H.I.G. Capital acquired Correct Care Recovery Solutions and merged it with Correctional Medical Group, creating Wellpath, according to Nashville Business Journal. By November 2020, federal officials published a report alleging civil rights violations at Massachusetts prisons serviced by the healthcare company, and more recently, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren have sent letters to both the Department of Corrections and Wellpath itself raising concerns about the company’s treatment of prisoners.
In a statement Monday, Wellpath said it has “dramatically” reduced use of restraints and seclusion and improved patient care at Bridgewater State Hospital since it began servicing it.
“Wellpath always puts patients at the center of everything we do,” Wellpath said in a statement. ” … We value the important role the DLC plays and look forward to continued collaboration with them and the Massachusetts Department of Correction as we continue working to further improve services at Bridgewater.”
