CONCORD – The state’s leading group for those with disabilities launched a class action suit against Gov. John Lynch and the state Thursday for “needless institutionalization” of adults with serious mental illness.

The lawsuit was filed by the Disabilities Rights Center and follows a finding last April by the federal Department of Justice investigation that the state was failing to place those with disabilities in the most integrated setting.

Mandy Dube, 22, of Newport, said she had been doing well living in a group home with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder until budget cuts closed it in August 2010.

Mandy said she ended up living in her mother’s basement, interrupted by several admissions to hospital emergency rooms and psychiatric wards.

“I believe that my greatest need is to live more independently,” Mandy said at a news conference Thursday announcing the suit.

Another of the six named plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Amanda E., a 30-year-old woman from Manchester who was raised in Hudson and suffers from schizoaffective disorder and seizures.

Her 30 hospitalizations contributed to her losing custody of her daughter, her only child.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Concord. Associate Attorney General Anne Edwards said her office hasn’t officially received a copy of the lawsuit but will mount a defense.

“We will vigorously defend the state in this matter,” Edwards said.

Attorney General Michael Delaney disputed the critical federal report last fall, noting that the state already had declared its mental health system “broken” and “in crisis.”

The state already was moving aggressively to make improvements as much as is allowed during a sluggish economy and very tight state budget, Delaney said last fall.

The suit charges that the state’s treatment of adults at the New Hampshire Hospital in Concord and the Glencliff Home in Benton are in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Nursing Home Reform Act.

New Hampshire Hospital has an admission rate 40 percent higher than the national average. Its readmission rate is nearly double the national average.

In 2010, more than 15 percent of the patients discharged by the hospital were readmitted within 30 days. Nearly a third were readmitted within 180 days, and some patients are essentially in and out of the hospital all year.

Federal officials also noted that people in psychiatric crisis can linger for hours in a hospital nursing room before they receive help, which is both costly and inadequate care.

The federal report noted that the state could treat these adults in the community for a much lower cost than it now spends to treat them.

The law firm of Devine Millimet is assisting the Disabilities Rights Center with its lawsuit.

“For many individuals, these prolonged institutional admissions and hospitalizations result from the inability of New Hampshire’s existing community programs to meet their basic treatment needs and to prevent their unnecessary institutionalization,” said Amy Messer, lead lawyer with the DRC.

Messer told reporters that community treatment is cheaper than warehousing those with mental illness in the state hospital or Glencliff Home.

“The budget is not just the problem; it is how we are spending the money that we have,” Messer said.

Kevin Landrigan can reached at 321-7040 or klandrigan@nashuatelegraph.com; also check out Kevin Landrigan (@KLandrigan) on Twitter and don’t forget The Telegraph’s new, interactive live feed at www.nashuatelegraph.com/topics/livefeed.

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