Improved patient rights equals improved care and saves Alaska money
OPINION: Improving and protecting the rights of Alaska Mental Health Trust beneficiaries can only help the state.
Alaska's disabled psychiatric patients need their voices heard
OPINION: Alaska needs an enlightened grievance avenue for disabled psychiatric patients -- not just an answering machine.
Alaska needs to take back authority it ceded on mental health grievances
OPINION: If the state of Alaska continues to allow private mental health hospitals and psychiatric units to act with the power of the state, then the state has an obligation to set the patient grievance rules, due process and appeal process.
Higgins mental health bill needs support; vulnerable Alaskans deserve a voice
OPINION: Rep. Pete Higgins' mental health patient grievance bill deserves support. When psychiatric hospitals and units write their own grievance policy, due process, appeal process, etc., they protect the facility or unit, not the patients -- Who is speaking for the patients?
A match made in the USA: Unemployment and immigration
OPINION: The US used to celebrate people who worked at labor jobs in song and folklore; but these days it's tough to be an American worker.
Alaska Legislature must act: 'Nurse Ratched' is real
OPINION: Alaska damages the dignity and recovery of psychiatric patients through a flawed grievance process. With several drafts of legislation available, the Legislature has no excuse for allowing the injustice to continue.
Legislature must fix Alaska's mental health grievance rules
OPINION: Fundamental changes must be made in how psychiatric patients are provided services and how patients and guardians file a complaint and receive a resolution in the state of Alaska.
Reducing trauma to psychiatric patients
In Alaska, people suffering from mental illness can be detained, handcuffed, placed in the back of a marked police car and transported to a hospital for a forced evaluation. For the patient it is terrifying, humiliating, embarrassing and intimidating.