For the first time in its 40-year history, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) will be led by a woman. On Thursday, Gov. Jay Inslee named Cheryl Strange as the agency’s next secretary.Read More
COVID-19 has hit at least 158 hospital workers since March, which takes them off the schedule and means a lot of overtime for the workers left on the wards. At least 64 patients have tested positive and one has died. Making matters worse, the economic downturn that resulted from the pandemic, and the loss of revenues needed to run state government s forcing the Department Read More
To date, 22 Western State Hospital (WSH) staff have tested positive for the virus. That number has more than quadrupled in two weeks. In addition, six patients have tested positive and one elderly patient has died. Claudio said with each additional positive case, her fear rises. Read More
The best available science suggests that people should maintain at least six feet of distance from others to avoid contracting COVID-19 – which is believed to be spread through droplets. But practicing safe distancing is often a challenge in congregate living settings.Read More
Nearly a year-and-a-half after a series of vicious patient-on-staff attacks, including one that cost a nurse part of her ear, Western State Hospital is poised to open a new unit to treat its 10 most violence-prone patients. Read More
Not only are these patients being hospitalized unnecessarily, they’re taking up beds needed by other patients. As of Sept. 6, the state said there were 19 patients waiting for a bed at Western and Eastern State Hospitals.Read More
In recent months, court commissioners on both sides of the Cascades have found the state of Washington in contempt, and even imposed fines, over access to state psychiatric care for people with severe developmental disabilities. The cases involve people who’ve been found to pose an imminent risk to themselves or others, but are languishing in local hospitals.Read More
A federal judge is set to hear arguments Portland this week from mental health advocates who say the state is failing dozens of criminal defendants in need of treatment.Read More
Some psychiatric patients are spending not just hours in the emergency room, but days or a week. They're living there in the ER because there is nowhere else to send them. Northwest policymakers are now making it a priority to create more treatment capacity for people in mental health and addiction crises.Read More
The enforcement action this week by the Washington Department of Labor and Industries follows a months-long investigation triggered by three violent patient-on-nurse assaults last year at Western State Hospital in Lakewood.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is taking the first step toward a plan to help house and treat psychiatric patients who have been involved in the criminal justice system: a new, 500-bed state mental hospital.Read More
In the wake of three serious patient-on-staff assaults, more than 150 nurses at Washington's Western State Hospital have signed a "no-confidence" letter calling for the replacement of the psychiatric hospital's chief nursing officer Karen Pitman and her deputies. Read More
The attack on Berni that September evening was the third serious patient-on-staff assault at Western State Hospital in a two-month period. In August, two other members of the nursing staff had been pushed to the floor and stomped by patients, according to press reports and hospital administrators. One of the nursing staff who was attacked appeared so bloody that a coworker Read More
More than 80 people gathered at the local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. They were there for a forum organized by a fledgling group of moms whose severely mentally ill children have struggled to get the help they need in Washington state — sometimes with deadly consequences.Read More
Despite a two year turnaround effort, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Monday that it will strip Washington’s Western State Hospital of federal certification for failing to comply with standards.Read More
Last week, federal inspectors found serious safety violations at Western State Hospital that could put patients at risk of suicide. They spent several days at Western State looking for full compliance with federal standards. Now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has accepted the hospital’s immediate plan to address the suicide risk issues.Read More
Federal inspectors have found serious safety violations at Western State Hospital that could increase the chances of patient suicides. The finding this week has the potential to further imperil $65 million in annual federal funding the state receives to operate the 857-bed psychiatric hospital near Tacoma.Read More
On any given day, nearly half the civil, or non-criminal, patients at Western State are ready to be discharged, but there's nowhere to send them. That means they take up beds that patients in crisis, like Brian's daughter, may desperately need. In other words, there's a waitlist to get into Western State because there's a waitlist to get out.Read More
File photo of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Cheryl Strange, former CEO of Western State and the current Secretary of the Department of Social and Health Services. AUSTIN JENKINS / […]Read More
