Fourteen years ago, the Seattle Times published two articles I wrote about my sister and our family’s struggle to get her ongoing mental health treatment.
The first was after she jumped off the Highway 520 bridge on New Year’s Day 2010, and the second was later that year when the community came together to support us.
After being rescued from Lake Washington in 2010, she spent a month in the psychiatric ward at Harborview Medical Center and underwent 18 rounds of electroshock therapy before being admitted to Western State Hospital in Tacoma, where she attempted suicide again by putting her head under the wheels of a large truck.
By February 2011, my sister’s condition had stabilized and she could be discharged to a mental health facility. We sold her car and used up all our assets to help her qualify for Medicaid and Social Security Disability benefits.
Fast forward to 2024, and I’m happy to say that my sister has been living in the same Sound Mental Health Facility in Redmond for the past 13 years. But that’s about to change.
King County is where my sister is now. Too She is no longer in a position to receive the level of care that has kept her safe and stable for over a decade. The county told Sound it will only pay for her sister’s care through May 31. King County bases this on a numerical system, where they consider her to need one point more to stay in her current condition.
In 2010 I noted how hard it is to get someone into the mental health care treatment system. Now in 2024 I am discovering how hard it is to keep them there.
The mental health system is a revolving door that ends up causing more grief and expense to families and taxpayers than if those who need mental health services were treated with compassion and continuity of care.
Just because someone is well doesn’t mean they don’t need a continuing level of mental health services. Would we stop giving a diabetic insulin if their blood sugar levels are stable?
Sound’s caregivers told the county that her sister should stay where she is, where she has rebuilt her life.
King County mental health officials are adamant that my sister must leave, but say they will let her stay as long as she makes progress toward leaving.
What does that progress mean? It began with both of us undergoing a two-and-a-half-hour in-person evaluation with our state’s social services department that involved a revisit to my sister’s memories of all the involuntary treatments she had undergone since high school.
This assessment was used to determine the daily rate the state would pay for my sister’s care, so we scrambled to find an adult home that had space and would accept her at that rate — an unlikely scenario in affluent Redmond.
If she were to be admitted to such a facility, she would have to become an outpatient and figure out how to get to her therapy and psychiatric medication monitoring appointments. Currently, she gets these appointments where she lives. Previously, she found herself in a cycle of involuntary treatment because she did not have the energy to go to outpatient appointments or take her medication.
My sister’s assessed per diem is also $20 less than what it would take to keep her at the Redmond Sound facility, and the family is prohibited from making up that amount.
It appears King County’s goal is to get my sister off the county roll and onto the state roll, which would free up the county from paying for it, in order to maximize their budget. Can’t we just look at people who need ongoing mental health care as people, not just numbers in a budget?
Can we please stop this merry-go-round and keep my sister safe and stable, in a relationship that gives her a sense of purpose and normalcy? Does a good story about mental health have to end in disaster?
