Advocates tell State House committee to center lived experience and fund community mental-health supports, not expanded inpatient beds

Two witnesses who identified themselves as people with lived experience urged the State House Committee on Health Care to prioritize community-based, peer-led mental health services and to resist proposals to expand inpatient or forensic facilities.

"This was punishment masquerading as care," said Naila Raminski, a patient representative with Mad Freedom Advocates, describing years she spent involuntarily institutionalized and the restraints and forced treatments she said she experienced. Raminski told the committee that people with lived experience should be centered in policymaking and criticized a working-group bill she referred to as H. 764 for requiring only one member with lived experience.

The witnesses framed their testimony around the Olmstead decision and civil-rights protections. "Olmstead affirmed that people have the right to…