Last October I posted this hopeful announcement about an anonymous donor who wanted to pay for a memorial to Lawrence Mocha, the gravedigger at Willard for 40 years. Since that time, the New York State Office of Mental Health has worked furiously to keep this from happening. They are trying to use both the federal HIPAA law and stricter NY state privacy laws as a reason to block this memorial. However, every bit of information that would be put on the memorial comes not from confidential medical records, but from publicly available records like the federal census and the social security death index. One wonders what their real motivation is? They have even threatened the Willard Memorial Committee members with prosecution if they persist. There is a meeting on Tuesday with the Willard Memorial Committee, the OMG Commissioner and other OMH officials, and the state senator who represents the district where Willard is located. I hope this can be worked out. Otherwise, I can think of some national news media who might find this an interesting story.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 20:58:13 +0000
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