November 13, 2024
PROVIDENCE – Hospital stays stretching more than a year. Children being forced to live in locked residential facilities hours from their homes and loved ones. Parents unable to find behavioral health care services to keep their child at home and in their community.
These are among the allegations advocates leveled Wednesday in a class-action lawsuit against the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services; EOHH secretary Richard Charest; the state Department of Children Youth and Families; and its leader, Ashley Deckert.
“My kids have not been together in years … This is inhumane. The stress and trauma they have suffered … Is indescribable.
Rebecca Almeida, mother of four of the plaintiffs
The time is now.”