Western State Hospital is NOT
licensed as a psychiatric hospital under state law (part 2)
KUOW's radio investigator/interviewer John Ryan, in his 9/2012 transcribed interview "Safety and Suicide at Western State" refers to an earlier investigative report in 2008 by a KIRO News Team, investigating another suicide at WSH. WSH refused to respond to Ryan's inquiries regarding the followup to that tragedy.
In 2008 the KIRO Team experienced similar refusals.
Now folks, finish reading this page and then return here and click on the full transcript of KIRO TV's report: I found it to be quite disturbing.
Here is the partial 2009 transcript of
The Suicide Bed: A Cover-Up At Western State Mental Hospital
Kiro TV Transcript:"When a patient dies behind the gates of Washington’s largest state-run
mental hospital, the Department of Social and Health Services tells us
that it's none of our business. In addition, that agency refuses to
provide thousands of the records KIRO-TV requested regarding multiple
suicides there..."
Kiro TV Transcript: Although DSHS refused to provide us any relevant documents regarding the
suicide, we obtained hundreds from a variety of sources anyway, and
they are damaging."
from MOM Cindi...
IF Western State Hospital and Eastern State Hospital were licensed as state mental health hospitals under RCW 71.12 as all other psychiatric hospitals ARE MANDATED BY LAW UNDER PUNISHMENT OF FINES AND INCARCERATION; would WSH have been held more immediately and publicly accountable?
a note of outrage and concern from Mom Cindi The answer our public demands is why has our state
allowed the largest mental health institution in the Northwest and in
our state escape the requirement of being licensed as a state psychiatric hospital and thus be under the scrutiny it requires of
smaller psychiatric hospitals, including reporting its errors and making them
public.
