Health

Photos: Inside the Alaska Psychiatric Institute

Since mid-October, 40 involuntarily detained, acutely mentally ill patients were transferred to Fairbanks or Juneau, mostly on commercial airliners, because the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage didn't have enough doctors to evaluate them.

API's psychiatric staff is down from 10 to 5, said CEO Melissa Ring, short two psychiatrists and three psychiatric health practitioners who can prescribe drugs. Unable to hire even temporary doctors, in November she closed one of two large units used for the 72-hour detention and evaluation of patients, removing use of 24 beds from the 80-bed state mental hospital.

Read more: Anchorage mental patients flown to Fairbanks, Juneau due to doctor shortage

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