Alaska is one of the few states that has not written a state grievance law to protect all psychiatric patients in locked facilities or units.
Many of the worst examples of psychiatric patient rights and care in the 1880s were adopted by the Alaska Legislature starting in the 1980s. The psychiatric patient grievance law AS 47.30.847 states that managers of psychiatric facilities write the patient grievance and appeal process. The Department of Family and Community Services has stated that the managers of psychiatric facilities will act as the impartial body to rule on a patient’s complaint.
Between 1981 and 1984, 11 rights were given to people locked in psychiatric facilities, state law AS 47.30.840. There is no enforcement mechanism in the law. And there is no independent oversight that advises managers of facilities if they are correctly following the law and if patients are well-treated.
Managers of psychiatric facilities have always wanted to keep secret what happens to patients within the walls of the institutions. More than 100 years ago, Dr. Emmett Dent testified to a New York grand jury that he had no means by which to tell if the psychiatric nurses were cruel to the patients.
I estimate there are 10,000 people who rotate in and out of locked psychiatric facilities or units every year. The level of disability of acute care psychiatric patients was underestimated in the $285,346 report to the Legislature and the general public. Some patients have a developmental or intellectual disability along with a mental illness. In 2024, the Legislature must provide more independent assistance and protections for people locked in psychiatric facilities or units.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email
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