A depleted state system fails many with serious mental illness
James Boyd Jr. was supposed to be one of the fortunate ones.
Within Massachusetts’ broken mental health care system, he was among those sick enough to be named clients of the state Department of Mental Health. State workers, accordingly, were tasked with watching over Boyd, who had chronic paranoid schizophrenia, and keeping him safe.
Yet just before sunrise one morning last August, he sat naked on a bench at a South End mental health center. The 49-year-old was agitated and had just gone to the bathroom outside the building, according to an internal state report obtained by the Globe.
Boyd had been released from a hospital psychiatric unit just days earlier, and it was clear to his immediate caregivers that he still required inpatient care, the report shows. But after two facilities refused to take him — a common problem for people with serious mental illness — the Department of Mental Health opted to keep Boyd in a less secure residential program that allowed him the freedom to come and go.
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