Insko might have had a right – NewsObserver.com

The decision by administrators at Dorothea Dix Hospital last week to stop a tour of the facility by Rep. Verla Insko, the chairwoman of the state’s mental health oversight committee, may have run afoul of a 161-year-old state law.

When legislators voted to create the state’s first mental asylum in January 1849, the law included a provision that “The Governor, Judges of the Courts and members of the General Assembly shall be ex officio visitors of the State Hospital.” That would mean that legislators such as Insko have a legal right to visit the facility.

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