Disability Law Center Finds Unlawful, Violent Practices and Unsafe Environmental Conditions Persist at Bridgewater State Hospital

Another scathing report about Bridgewater State Hospital

Disabiltiy Law Center just released their Feb. 6, 2025 report and the conditions at Bridgewater State Hospital (BSH) have NOT improved.

The report states: “The Commonwealth must stop waiting for change that will never come and protect BSH Persons Served (PS), a population widely recognized as including individuals with the most significant mental health disabilities in the state. The prison facility plagued with illegal restraint and seclusion practices, disproportionate and unnecessary uses of force, and a punishing correctional environment – even while subject to intensive DLC monitoring, investigations, and advocacy – will not become a licensed, accredited psychiatric hospital. The dehumanizing and destabilizing daily traumas that PS face will not end. DLC’s decade of work at BSH has shown that even the most promising reform has been temporary under the authority of DOC. With this in mind, DLC again urgently calls on the Commonwealth to transfer oversight of BSH to DMH so that the rules and regulations that apply to all other Massachusetts psychiatric hospitals apply at BSH, and to commit to construction of a modern DMH hospital facility to serve the BSH population.“

DLC RECOMMENDATIONS

Only 2 actions can adequately protect the rights and health of the current
and future BSH population:

1. The Commonwealth must immediately place BSH operations under the authority of DMH to ensure current and future PS access to trauma-informed, person-centered mental health treatment; and
2. The Commonwealth must urgently construct a modern DMH hospital
   facility designed to provide all individuals in need of “strict security”
   psychiatric evaluation and/or treatment in a safe, therapeutic
   environment and finally close BSH.