Western State Hospital shifts toward forensic patients as its competency waitlist grows
The Seattle Times described Western State Hospital's transition from a mixed civil and forensic hospital to one focused on patients from the criminal courts. The plan reduces civil patients by about 180 over a year and adds a new 350-bed building, set to break ground in 2023, that would bring forensic capacity to 530 beds by 2029. Staffing was at 69 percent.
The hospital was struggling with a growing waitlist for competency and restoration services: 365 people in mid-December 2021, nearly 60 percent above January 2020. Only 13 percent of restoration services were completed on time in 2021, while 88 percent of evaluations met the 14-day mark. A Disability Rights Washington attorney said the picture looked much like 2015, when the Trueblood ruling was won, and that her organization had opposed building the new hospital in favor of earlier community programs.
The article places the hospital's overhaul, which began after it lost federal certification in 2018, squarely within the state's continuing struggle to meet federal court deadlines.
Source: How big changes at WA’s Western State Hospital fit into Gov. Inslee’s plan to ‘re-imagine’ mental health — The Seattle Times (via Walla Walla Union-Bulletin), by Esmy Jimenez
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