Judge: State must resolve mental health emergency care crisis

New Hampshire’s practice of temporarily boarding mental health patients in hospital emergency departments is an illegal seizure of the hospitals’ property that disrupts care for other patients in need, a federal judge has ruled, New Hampshire Public Radio reports. In an order issued Feb. 23, U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty did not immediately require the practice to end but told hospitals and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to come up with a timeline for proposing a court order to permanently resolve the issue.