"That's part of a 'safe and adequate' discharge plan, too," she says.

Those services, known as discharge plans, help mentally ill inmates connect to doctors and clinics once they leave jail.

Yet multiple factors must be considered in the subsequent discharge plan to ensure the safety and healthy development of both the baby and its mother.

State regulations require hospitals to have a comprehensive discharge plan when a patient is released and to follow up on the patient's progress.

You may not feel well enough to ask the questions and take the steps you need to create a discharge plan.

If you can't agree, ask if you can challenge the discharge plan and what the first steps are.

Seldom do hospitals call to arrange discharge plans, they said.

But on occasion, she said, "patients will refuse all the discharge plans."

A discharge plan called for him to go back to the Montreal area.

And in cases where the city has developed a tentative discharge plan, two-thirds were scheduled to go to state hospitals.