Alaska has a 125-year history, first as a territory and then as a state, of sending people with a mental illness to be locked in psychiatric facilities that had a known history of grossly mistreating patients.
Until the late 1960s, Alaska was still using Morningside Psychiatric Hospital in Portland, Oregon, to care for Alaskans with a disability despite a 1957 government report condemning Morningside’s treatment of patients. And today Alaska state agencies are still sending psychiatric patients to locked facilities in and out of state while not having a sufficient state standard of care and oversight.
Between 1999 and 2003, I spent over 200 days in locked psychiatric facilities or units as a patient. One week was in the Nevada state psychiatric hospital and one week in a Seattle psychiatric hospital. The rest of my time in psychiatric hospitals was in the state-run Alaska Psychiatric Institute or the Providence Psychiatric Emergency Room. The majority of that time was on the 20-bed API Susitna unit.
In the months I spent in psychiatric facilities, I came in contact with hundreds of psychiatric patients. Some I remember fondly, and others with a touch of sadness. In the best of times, being locked in a psychiatric facility is humiliating and unnecessarily traumatizing. Some patients walk away from the experience in one piece, others don’t. As of now, there are no Alaska state requirements in law or regulations that the owners of locked psychiatric facilities must reduce the unnecessary trauma experienced by patients to the lowest possible amount.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. One hundred and thirty-eight years ago, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly was given the assignment to tell readers of the conditions inside a locked psychiatric facility. This is one of Bly’s observations: “The attendants seemed to find amusement and pleasure in inciting the patients to do their worst.” Several years ago, the Alaska Ombudsman’s Office stated that the staff at API seemed to have a permissive attitude toward patient-on-patient assaults. A century ago, there were insufficient rules and oversight to protect patients; and today, there are still insufficient Alaska state rules and oversight to protect psychiatric patients in locked facilities.
Psychiatric patients in locked facilities are given eleven rights according to state law AS47.30.840. But when I was a patient in the state-run API, I received very few of those rights. I could not receive unopened mail, go outdoors in the fenced-in courtyard, have private telephone conversations with family and friends, and I had to endure what I felt was “corporal punishment.” State law AS47.30.840 needs a complete overhaul to that there is a state enforcement mechanism and oversight.
In my 200-plus plus days in locked psychiatric facilities or units in Alaska, including in API and the Providence Hospital Psychiatric ER, I have at times been unfairly placed in handcuffs, restraints, and isolation, thrown on the floor, forced medicated, punched in the face and given a mild concussion and two black eyes, locked on units unable to go in the fenced-in courtyard for months. And when I attempted to file a grievance to get better treatment, I found I had no rights or power in the grievance process.
I believe 70 years ago there was a 100% chance that an Alaska resident sent to a locked psychiatric facility would develop post-traumatic stress disorder because of the mistreatment. Today in Alaska, I estimate there is about a 50% chance of a psychiatric patient that is placed in a locked psychiatric facility will end up developing or exacerbating PTSD because of mistreatment.
The Alaska legislature this year has to improve psychiatric patient rights and greatly reduce that statistic.
Faith Myers is the author of the book, “Going Crazy in Alaska: A History of Alaska’s Treatment of Psychiatric Patients,” and has spent more than seven months as a patient in locked psychiatric facilities in Alaska.
