Inmates Suffering from Mental Health Illness Await Treatment

By Cassidy Gardner
On April 7, Bruce Flatt was arrested and booked on misdemeanor assault charges, after he hit the manager of the Steptoe Friendly Mart with a stick of beef jerky, a month later he remains under 23-hour lockdown in the Whitman County Jail.

Flatt, 41-years-old, suffers from schizophrenia with a bipolar component. The year prior to his arrest Flatt had been living in an abandoned gas station in Steptoe. He was not taking his prescribed medicine when the incident occurred.

“My doctor that was taking care of me sent me a letter saying he retired and my family won’t talk to me anymore. I can’t get to the doctor, can’t get pills, so I keep hearing the voices,” Flatt said.

Captain Bob Ingalls, the Whitman County Jail Administrator, said there is no treatment for mental health at his disposal and he keeps Flatt separate from other inmates who have day-room privileges because he does not want Flatt to irritate them.

“I want to put a lid on any possible problems, so I keep the mental health patients separate. We use to be able to send people with mental health problems straight to Eastern State Hospital, but now the beds are few and far between and we can be waiting for between five to six weeks,” Ingalls said.

Flatt said he feels his mental illness is further aggravated since being put in jail.

“All the time I’m just thinking of getting my feet chopped off and I have this haunting voice saying they are going to put me in prison for the rest of my life,” Flatt said.

In 2008 the budget at the jail for professional medical services was $35,000. The majority of the funding goes to paying for jail doctor visits, county nurse visits and for dental work.

“It’s actually a good thing that Bruce was picked up because now he can get proper treatment,” Ingalls said.

He is hoping that Flatt will be moved to Paul’s Place, an adult family home in Colfax.

“I get state checks but the Bank of Whitman said I can’t come there anymore and the check bothers me because it has [printed] bars on it,” Flatt said.

With tears in his eyes Flatt explains that he always aspired to be like his father and that all of his siblings have earned college degrees.

“My dad never had any of these problems. I just can’t do anything and I have never done anything like I did that day [at Steptoe Friendly Mart], I was just upset because I had a big fight with my mom on the phone,” Flatt said.

Captain Ingalls said mental health is a major issue across the state and is often ignored when the state is making budget decisions.

In Spokane, a more metropolitan area of Eastern Washington, there have been major changes made in how the County Jail treats inmates with mental health problems.

Three years ago the Spokane County Jail hired a four person mental health staff and started providing all of their services in-house, meaning that psych-evaluations and medical prescriptions were written by the doctor employed by the jail.

Spokane County Commissioner Mark Richards said he thinks psychotropic medications are more accurately dispersed now.

“We were pill pushers before and people were committing minor crimes because jail was the only comfortable place they knew. When they got there they were prescribed sleep meds and we were giving them this crutch,” Richards said.

The doctor at the Spokane County Jail no longer prescribes sleep medication, except in extreme cases.

The reform was prompted by excessive spending; Spokane County was paying Eastern State Hospital $1 million a year to house inmates.

“The jail was spending five times what they should have been spending. But now we have designed a safe and more ethical housing environment for inmates with mental illness,” Richards said.

The amount spent on psychotropics has declined by 5% since the mental health reform was implemented at the Spokane County Jail. In 2006 the jail spent approximately $780,000 on psychotropics, compared to the $637,000 they spent in 2008.

Brian H. Struthers, an inmate at Spokane Count Jail, said his 12 month stay has been difficult because he used to receive counseling and he misses talking to someone.

Struthers, 33-years-old, was arrested for arson after he started a fire at the adult family home he was living in.

Lieutenant Dan Veloski, the head of the Spokane Jail Division-Medical Services Unit, said mental health is a priority within the jail and right now he is in the process of getting his mental health staff classified as civil service, so their positions are secure.

The Mental Health Unit is the only unit in a Washington jail that is registered through Washington State as a mental health provider.

“Here we try to make mental health a priority, but on a state level I worry about whether it’s considered a priority,” Veloski said.

In Whitman County Bruce Flatt still awaits placement in an adult family home.

“I feel like I’m on a corridor to hell,” Flatt said.

Sources:

Bob Ingalls: (509) 397-6266
Bruce Flatt: (509) 397-6266
Dan Veloski: (509) 477-2698
Brian H. Struthers: (509) 326-7806
Mark Richards: (509)-251-3643