SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Utah lawmakers have voted to recognize the at least 474 people who died while in state custody and were not given a proper burial.
The Deseret News reports (https://bit.ly/2jjmQAa ) that options for patients with mental illness a century ago were limited, and many were sent to indefinite confinement at the Utah State Hospital.
Staff members at the hospital have been working to find patients’ graves and plan to put up monuments to honor them.
Rep. Edward Redd, a Logan Republican who proposed the measure, says many of the patients became emotionally and physically separated from their families. He says the hospital is now a more temporary treatment facility that aims to send its patients back into society.
Redd is a mental health treatment provider.
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Information from: Deseret News, https://www.deseretnews.com
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