Two major unions representing Massachusetts nurses and health care workers told lawmakers that there aren’t enough beds in psychiatric hospitals to accommodate an influx of patients sent for evaluation by the courts.
Representatives from the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the Service Employees International Union 509, which represents human service workers, told the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery Tuesday that state officials should create special hospital units for forensic patients — meaning those sent to psychiatric hospitals by the courts, often for evaluations.
Such patients are typically criminally charged or awaiting trial, or are the subjects of petitions for civil commitment to mental health treatment. Civil commitments require a professional determination that a person poses a danger to themselves or others…