NE state senator pens letter to governor on state psychiatric hospital issues

State Sen. Carol Blood on Monday warned Gov. Jim Pillen in a public letter about issues at the Lincoln Regional Center (LRC). The LRC is a Nebraska DHHS psychiatric hospital that serves patients sent there by courts or mental health boards. She says shifts for mental health specialists can last 16 hours or more. She says two mental health specialists there have been in car wrecks trying to make it back in time from a short break of no more than half an hour. Blood also writes that mandatory overtime is now common and attacks on staff by patients aren't adequately addressed. A lack of custodians, she says, have created an unclean and unhealthy work environment.