One side of the story: Psychiatric patients intimidate or injure staff at state-owned Alaska Psychiatric Institute at a rate of 100 to 200 incidents a year. And that’s not counting the 20 or so other locations that handle acute care psychiatric patients.
The other side of the story: In 2017, 116 patients at API were injured, some by staff, some by other patients or accidents, 90 needed medical treatment or hospitalization. To my knowledge, no staff member was arrested for injuring a patient.
First and foremost, there has to be a level playing field between psychiatric patients and the state. “Psychiatric patient rights are to remain intact to the greatest extent possible” — that is the ruling of most courts, but it is not happening at API or other psychiatric units.
Patient rights are removed for minor infractions of hospital rules or not given at all. Patients have no impartial body to help them file a grievance or to bring their grievance to. And that presents a high level of frustration for patients.
Most newspaper articles are written from the point of view of “What is the state going to do with those psychiatric patients?” Very few articles are written from the point of view of “What do patients need for patient rights to assist them in recovery?”
— Faith Myers
Anchorage
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