Opinion: Complaints from mentally ill patients should help shape mental health care in Alaska

Successful companies respond to customer complaints. Unlike the locked psychiatric facilities in Alaska. I estimate that over 600 psychiatric patient complaints a year are funneled into what I consider a black hole, without significantly changing mental health care at the policy or legislative level.

Last November 17, Sen. Matt Claman chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Subject: Report to Congress of House Bill 172 on Ways to Improve the Rights, Care, and Outcomes of Psychiatric Patients. The video is available online.

The submitters of the House Bill 172 report were primarily psychiatric service providers. Department of Family and Community Services, Department of Health, Alaska Mental Health Trust Agency, Agnew Beck.

At the beginning of the presentation, the presenters announced that they do not know how many people enter and leave closed psychiatric facilities and wards each year for mandatory evaluation and treatment. And there are no statistics on how many psychiatric patients are injured each year during treatment or transportation, or on the number and type of patient complaints or traumatic events they experience. State agencies and Congress must ask how they can improve care for people they know little or nothing about.

Presenters said they visited 12 psychiatric facilities that receive direct funding or grants from the state to write the $285,346 report. Not all facilities had the same patient complaint and appeals process. States implementing best practices have created standardized complaint and appeals processes for patients in closed psychiatric facilities and wards. The impartial authority required by state law AS47.30.847 was not the same for all facilities. And only 12 people with real experience in the mental health system were interviewed.

The report said all 12 psychiatric facilities visited were in compliance with state laws and regulations. However, in a later paragraph, he points out that he is the only psychiatric facility that has developed a policy that follows the gender selection of staff in the Intimate Care Act AS18.20.095.

The report required by House Bill 172 also states that former mentally ill patients have no recollection of ever being informed of their rights. Speakers at the hearing said this was because mental illness made patients incapable of thinking. The hospital took no responsibility for the patient not understanding his rights and indicated that nothing would be changed. In my opinion, the state should establish a standard method of informing mentally ill patients of their legal and regulatory rights.

People with mental illness have the right to take their complaints to an impartial body under state law AS47.30.847. On February 9, 2024, Matt Davidson, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Department of Family and Community Services, responded to a request for information. “How many patients did he file a complaint with an impartial body with API in 2022?” The number Davidson gave was zero. The number zero makes sense only after understanding that psychiatric facility administrators are responsible for creating policies for an unbiased medical facility.

From mid-2005 to mid-2006, Alaska Psychiatric Institute received 256 patient complaints involving allegations of sexual abuse. None of the patients were able to take their complaints to an impartial body. It is my experience that psychiatric hospitals like API do not adhere to the law. No state agency has the power to ensure that mentally ill patients are afforded all their statutory rights.

The Department of Family and Community Services provides psychiatric services. Run the API. Their budget reaches tens of millions. They have made it clear in their reports and testimony that they do not want to collect and share statewide statistics on psychiatric complaints, injuries, and traumatic events that occur in closed psychiatric facilities. Without these statistics, the public and Congress cannot make appropriate mental health care or policy decisions.

Alaska Statute 47.30.847 allows administrators of psychiatric facilities to create patient grievance procedures. The greatest damage Congress can do to the recovery of psychiatric patients is to continue to allow administrators of closed psychiatric facilities like API to set patient rights and standards of care. A recent white paper I co-authored to address the issues in the HB172 report is a comprehensive prescription for what to do. Available at https://psychrights.org/whitepaper.pdf.

Congress in 2024 will fully enshrine the rights of psychiatric patients, in line with the goals envisioned by API in the 1960s: creating true partnerships between shuttered psychiatric facilities and their patients. It is necessary to reconsider it.

Faith J. Myers He is the author of the book “Going Crazy in Alaska” and has spent more than seven months in a locked psychiatric facility or ward.

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