When someone is a threat to themselves or others because they’re in a mental health crisis, they may not agree to voluntary treatment. Law enforcement and county attorneys often have one option, get a judge to commit that person to the state psychiatric hospital in Butte.
Matt Kuntz, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Health of Montana, says a mental health provider told him that process is harming patients.
"At the beginning of this Legislature, he said ‘Your emergency detention statute is killing people.'”
That’s because the commitment process to the state hospital can be time consuming and the hospital often doesn’t help people transition back home.
A bill would allow counties to involuntarily hold people in crisis for 72 hours, allowing them to stabilize people closer to home. It would also reduce waiting lists at the state hospital.
The bill has already passed the Senate. The state health department, the state county attorney’s association and mental health advocates voiced support for the bill during its first hearing in the House.
