Mental health advocates battle state in Wash. Supreme Court

Should mentally ill patients be held against their will in emergency departments without mental health care? That’s what the Washington State Supreme Court will consider in a case pitting the state against hospitals and mental health advocates, who oppose the practice, The News Tribune reports.Patients deemed to constitute a risk to themselves or others can be held for treatment for up to three days before appearing before a court to see if they should stay for longer. But state budget cuts have sliced into services, leaving patients to languish in emergency departments for weeks, if not months, as they await admission to mental health treatment. Holding them in an E.R. is known as "psychiatric boarding.”A Pierce County Superior Court ruled against the practice earlier this year. If the decision is upheld, the Department of Social and Health Services warned in its briefing, hospitals would likely be forced to release detained patients any time there is no mental health bed available — and that could endanger the patients or others. — M.L.