$800M for a new Western State Hospital? Washington ponders replacement amid mental-health-system woes
Seattle TimesNov 16, 2018
The request is one of many ideas being floated over how to improve the state's troubled mental-health system, which has suffered from staffing shortages, safety issues and a lack of available beds for people.
Western State, an approximately 850-bed hospital and
Earlier this year, federal regulators decertified Western State, located in
The inspections also found problems with the hospital's outdated buildings, such as fire-suppression systems and so-called "ligature risks" -- protrusions in bedrooms, bathrooms and elsewhere that patients could potentially use to strangle or hang themselves.
About 290 patients currently in the hospital were sent there through criminal courts to determine their competency to stand trial, or have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. The remainder of the beds are largely used by patients who were involuntarily committed through a civil process due to psychiatric illnesses.
Shortly before the hospital was decertified, Gov.
The DSHS proposal requests money through the state's capital-construction budget to create a new, 500-bed facility on the hospital's existing 150-acre campus.
Of that,
In its request, DSHS says that Western State's decertification has made it nearly impossible to bring the current facility back into federal compliance.
Before decertification, many of the building's outdated features couldn't pass fire or safety codes, but had been grandfathered into the law. To get recertified, Western State would have to be brought up to current standards -- at the cost of more than
Even the hospital's dedicated building for criminal-competency patients -- a newer facility built in 2000 -- might not pass muster with federal regulators.
That building "may not be certifiable because the existing sleeping rooms are too small according to current national hospital standards," the DSHS request says.
Federal regulators haven't told that directly to the state, said DSHS spokesman
No decision has been made about whether the request will be included in Inslee's proposed 2019-21 budget, a spokeswoman for the governor's office said. The governor's budget plan is set to be unveiled next month, ahead of the legislative session that begins in January.
Lawmakers in both political parties have broadly agreed that civilly-committed patients should be moved out of the state hospitals to community facilities, which would keep them closer to friends and family.
To handle that, Inslee has proposed building a slew of new 16-bed facilities across the state, as well as other types of housing for patients who are ready to be discharged from the hospitals.
Sen.
Sen.
But, he said, "I think it's reasonable and appropriate to look at replacing the facility."
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