WASHINGTON – Washington State is investing nearly $30 million to address a long-standing problem with increasing demand for state mental health services.
It’s a problem the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been sued over in the past, with hundreds of people forced to wait several months for admission to state mental health services.
The new 136-bed facility in Tukwila, Olympic Heritage Behavioral Health, is designed to increase the state’s capacity to admit new patients who have been civilly committed.
DSHS officials said this facility will help free up bed space at state hospitals, such as Western State Hospital, so they can more quickly provide competency restoration services to people facing criminal charges who have been ordered by a judge to receive mental health evaluations and cannot proceed through the justice system without those services.
“It helps alleviate the inpatient beds at Western State Hospital and the huge, huge demand for those beds because we’re able to transfer them from Western State Hospital to this facility,” said Dr Thomas Kinlen, the director of the DSHS Office of Forensic Mental Health Services. “A lot of it is bringing in additional beds, those beds, those in the community, beds at Western State Hospital – all of that has allowed us to reduce wait times and wait lists.”
It’s something DSHS has struggled with for years, with people in the past waiting up to a year to be admitted.
Last year, a judge ordered DSHS to pay murder suspect Alexander Jay $250 for every day he waited to be admitted for competency restoration services so he could stand trial, costing the state thousands of dollars while he waited for a bed at Western State Hospital.
Counties across the state have also accused DSHS in previous lawsuits of releasing patients who are not ready to be released in order to free up bed space.
“Washington state needs to have the fastest, most diligent way to build capacity as quickly as possible, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Governor Jay Inslee. “We got this hospital up and running in 60 days; that’s almost unprecedented.”
DSHS officials said just this year they’ve been able to reduce the average wait for state mental health services from 12 months to 35 days or less, but the goal is to continue adding bed capacity and get people admitted within seven days. At the same time, DSHS officials say demand for state mental health services has increased significantly in recent years, from about 3,000 competency restoration referrals in 2013 to more than 8,000 referrals last year.
“We’re trying to do that and do it as quickly as possible,” Governor Inslee said. “We’ve made tremendous investments, almost $2 billion since 2015, we’ve added 200 beds, and we’ve got another 500 beds that are coming online or under construction.”
“We’re making massive increases in mental health as fast as we can,” Inslee added. “That’s what we should be doing, and that’s what we’re doing.”
DSHS officials said they will continue to work to add bed capacity to meet their goals for admitting patients. The addition of a new state hospital is also expected to come online sometime in 2027-2028.
“We’re looking at 30 beds on the Maple Lane campus for 30 not guilty by reason of insanity patients from Western down to that facility, and we’re hoping to do that in the next six to eight weeks,” Dr Kinlen said. “That obviously creates 30 additional beds, and we’re looking at additional beds at the Maple Lane campus, and we also have a campus down in Vancouver that will be 48 civil beds.”
