Sen. Matt Claman introduced Senate Bill 231 last legislative session. If passed, some adolescents in locked psychiatric facilities would have better access to family. The mistake with the bill: It does not protect all people in locked psychiatric facilities. And it should.
In 1972, doctors and staff at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute wrote a nine-page report, “A 10-year history of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, 1962—1972.” The following paragraph is from that document:”The new concept (in patient care) was based on four premises: That the patient is a potentially responsible person, that he is capable of making constructive changes in attitude and behavior, that the chronic patient typically lacks skills in interpersonal relationships, and that the traditional hospital routine perpetuates the return to hospitalization.”
The staff at API in 1972 determined that keeping patients connected with family and community not only helped patients recover but also helped patients reintegrate back into society after release from the hospital. Today, locked psychiatric facilities in Alaska are not sufficiently keeping patients connected with community or family.
Alaska does not have a history of always providing good psychiatric patient care and protections. The reason for that is that Alaska has not established in law and regulations, patient rights and protections with an enforcement mechanism. And psychiatric patients have suffered.
— Dorrance Collins
Anchorage
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