Alaska has a 125-year history of using the lowest bid to provide care for psychiatric patients who end up in a locked facility. The well-being and safety of the patients and their recovery have always taken second place. Cost has always been the first consideration for the state. And because of that, psychiatric patients in need of help have too often just been warehoused in locked facilities with inferior rights and not protected by the state.
The Anchorage Times archive has articles about mental health care that give the reader insight into statistics and the thinking of the legislators in 1964. Rep. John Coghill, R-Nenana, said, “We were down to $6 a patient (per day) at Morningside when we had 400 patients there.” Sen. Al Owen, D-Uganik Bay, also expressed his frustration at the increased cost of caring for people with a disability within the state of Alaska.
In 1964, there were 157 patients at the state-run Alaska Psychiatric Institute and 137 Alaska residents as patients at the Morningside Psychiatric Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Politicians were stating the obvious — that it was cheaper to house Alaska’s psychiatric patients in Morningside. There was no mention of the terrible abuse that patients suffered at Morningside. The abuse was exposed by the government’s 1957 Overholser report. At the end of an Anchorage Times editorial in 1957, the last line states, “Anyone who signs a contract with Morningside should be sent to Morningside.” But the Alaska government was still signing contracts with Morningside in 1964 for patient care because it was cheap.
[Earlier news coverage: Volunteers uncover fate of thousands of ‘Lost Alaskans’ sent to Oregon mental hospital in the last century]
In 1964, patient rights and a reasonable standard of care for psychiatric patients locked in Morningside or API were nonexistent. Alaska politicians did not spend money on psychiatric patient rights or a reasonable standard of care. Treating people who developed a mental illness as something less than human became a habit for Alaska politicians, all in the name of saving money.
[Earlier: OPINION: The tragedy and history of Morningside Psychiatric Hospital]
From 1998 to 2004, Alaska’s behavioral health system became increasingly reliant on out-of-state psychiatric facilities to provide treatment of severely emotionally disturbed youths. Out-of-state placement grew by nearly 800%. Alaska Native children were overrepresented: 49% of children in state custody and 22% of non-custodial children in out-of-state placement were Alaska native. The behavioral health system today continues seeking the cheapest way to provide care for people with an acute mental illness, not considering that the lack of good patient rights often leads to patient mistreatment.
In 1982, a class action lawsuit was filed against the state of Alaska for stealing the 1 million acres of land granted to Alaska in trust for Alaska’s mental health program. The settlement of the lawsuit was approved by the trial court in 1994. All appeals were over by 1997. What was created out of the victory was the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority with a billion-plus dollars in land and cash. The Trust Authority has a fiduciary duty to manage the Trust to improve the rights and care for people with a disability. Alaska now has the money to establish top-of-the-line, in-state psychiatric patient care and patient protection laws, but unlike in 1964, politicians must find the will.
Alaska’s antiquated laws and regulations currently do not protect patients in locked psychiatric facilities, whether adults or adolescents. For Alaska politicians, it is as if the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act was never passed. Patients with a severe mental illness, along with a developmental or intellectual disability, do not have the ability to protect themselves. It is beyond the ability of most to follow the current outdated rules of how to complain about mistreatment in locked psychiatric facilities.
In the next legislative session, the following rights should be given to psychiatric patients in locked facilities: increase independent assistance when patients file a grievance; state enforcement to make sure patients are getting all of their rights; and patients should have the right to file a formal grievance with an impartial body at the time of their choosing. Without the legislature adding those rights, Alaska’s mental health care system is not much better than Morningside was 68 years ago.
Faith J. Myers is the author of the book “Going Crazy in Alaska.” She has spent more than seven months locked in psychiatric facilities in Alaska.
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