Alaska Mental Health Trust provides $150,000 to clear backlog of jailed defendants awaiting competency evaluations
The Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority announced on Monday, April 1, 2019 that it would give the Department of Health and Social Services $150,000 to contract forensic psychiatric services. The trust said 45 people were waiting in jails around the state for evaluations that Alaska law requires, and it expected the backlogged evaluations to be finished by mid-May. A Seattle forensic psychiatrist had already been hired with the money.
Officials blamed the delays on rising demand and on reduced capacity at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. A psychiatrist testified at a court hearing the previous week that she would be the last remaining doctor on staff by early April and planned to leave in May, though the hospital's private manager, Wellpath, said it had hired the equivalent of three full-time psychiatrists.
The grant was a stopgap rather than a fix, but it shows the state responding to the evaluation backlog with outside funding and contract evaluators.
Source: Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority gives state $150,000 to clear forensic competency evaluation backlog — Anchorage Daily News, by Michelle Theriault Boots
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