December 19th, 2010
NAMI Recommends Closure of Dorothea Dix Psych
Maine’s WCSH reports that the National Alliance On Mental Illness is recommending that the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor be closed. Read the article here: Advocate for Mentally Ill Recommends Closing Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center. I don’t think this means that the hospital is in any imminent danger of closing, but thought it worth noting — if only to see the continuing debate about hospital versus community care in action.
That $10,000/yr figure for patients that are super mental sounds extremely low.
I’m not buying the $10k a year per patient, that is REALLY low. I’m also on sold on the “community based” instead of institutional care, seems more people fall through the cracks outside of a facility.
That aside, hopefully the state keeps the hospital open. I recall reading a while back that the state had recently spent some money on refurbishing the building.