State mental health plan praised at hearing amid concerns about funding
Click here to view this article at the source publication 
Patrick Dowling said he feels more like a prisoner than a hospital patient when he goes to the emergency room during a mental health crisis.
Sometimes, there are police officers standing outside his room, which has no windows, and he gets put in shackles, he said. Dowling said he spends hours sitting on a bed, hoping for a phone call or a visit from a loved one.
“I am afraid; I don’t know what’s going on at all,” he said. “I don’t like going in there because I don’t want to feel like a criminal, nor should I have to feel like a criminal for having (a mental health condition) that I live with.”