Corrigan history

Corrigan Mental Health Center (MHC), 49 Hillside, Fall River, Massachusetts, is a DMH facility. It currently houses:

  1. a crisis stabilization unit

  2. an outreach program for prodromal schizophrenia spectrum disorder

  3. offices for outpatient counseling

  4. administrative offices and meeting rooms

  5. a very small (16-bed) inpatient psychiatric unit (IPU)

This website—and the Human Rights Complaint—pertain only to the IPU. None of the other MHC programs are implicated.

History

The Brutalist building was built in 1965 using federal funding (Community Mental Health Act of 1963). It was initially named the Fall River MHC, but “Corrigan” replaced “Fall River” in 1968. Corrigan was a cardiologist.

Mental health services are a public good; taxpayers should pay for these services. Given that the government will have a role, the question becomes: to what extent? Some services, such as the prodromal psychosis program at Corrigan, might optimally be provided by DMH directly (“directly” meaning “by people whose paycheck is from DMH).” More commonly, the government (and taxpayers) pay for the services ultimately, but it is through a competitive process whereby DMH solicits bids and then picks a vendor based on price and quality. Until 2017, emergency services at Corrigan were provided by DMH directly. In 2017, the Baker administration saved taxpayers $6.4 million in the first year alone by outsourcing emergency services at Corrigan. The winning vendor is not necessarily a publicly-hated for-profit corporation. In the case of Corrigan emergency services, for example, Boston University (Boston Medical Center) won the competition.

There is no economic justification for the government to provide IPU services directly. The Corrigan IPU operates at significant diseconomies of scale. For example, the closest psychiatric unit to Corrigan is Southcoast Behavioral, which has 192 beds (incidentally, all 192 patients have ready outdoor access at this modern facility).