John Nutting

He was working with an intensive case manager who knew full well about Maine's PTP statute, could have filed a court order to keep him on his treatment plan, did none of that.

So now the state of Maine is going to pay about $21 million to keep him lifetime in jail.

Just last week, in front of the Maine legislature, the head of the Maine Sheriff's Association said we need more funding because we're being forced to keep hundreds of people in our county jails that should be out in the community with supports or in a hospital, and we're just warehousing them in the county jails.

I would have them, as we do for any other medical condition, I would urge them to speak to the medical professionals in the field, the psychiatrists, psychologists, the nurse practitioners, the Maine Nurses Association.

all work on a daily basis with individuals suffering from untreated brain disorders.

And they're the ones, well, a nurse put it to me so eloquently just a month or so.

She said, this anosognosia lack of awareness.

People with Alzheimer's and dementia have the same anosognosia.

And we put them in facilities so that we assure that those people receive the care they do not realize they need.

And yet, with the schizophrenic with anosognosia, we build a nice mental health facility and say, if you want to come see me, oh, oh, come in, we'll help you.

And they're never going to come in.

I don't need to be on a treatment plan.

You need to be on a treatment plan as they're coming from.

And so it's the same anosognosia with a schizophrenic or an Alzheimer's.

And yet we treat them totally different.

The biggest single thing we could do so quickly, in my opinion, is stop the person that's cycling over and over again and tying up hundreds of beds.

I heard of a young man in Maine that had 43 hospitalizations before they finally put him on the PTP plan.

Six years ago, he's had none since.

And so we're tying up an unbelievable amount of bed space over and over with these folks cycling over and over and over again.

Same with the jail cells.