Mental Health

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in February warned the state it could lose funding after they found that the Montana State Hospital didn’t have measures in place to prevent COVID-19 infections and serious falls among patients, which led to four deaths.

Montana is joining other states around the country getting federal support to develop an Office of Faith and Community Based Services.

In 2009, Montana was caught up in a heated national debate over whether terminally ill patients could expedite their deaths by taking lethal, physician-prescribed medication. More than a decade later, the state is still mired in disagreement about medical aid in dying, in part because courts and elected lawmakers have sidestepped the political hot-potato. Meanwhile, individual Montanans are confronting profound and personal questions about death in their own ways — including whether “good” deaths are even possible.

Providing a mental health service for high-needs students has become more complicated for Montana’s school districts. Some are opting for other services that advocates and mental-health providers say are inadequate.

A program providing mental health services to public school students is close to running out of temporary funding. State and public school officials are still working out a new funding structure to keep providing services.

Tribal officials and various mental health advocates have been trying to find an alternative for nearly a decade. But the Fort Peck reservation is still badly lacking in both secure psychiatric facilities and qualified mental health workers.

Montana officials this week said they’ve found a solution to fund a school mental health program that has been on shaky ground for more than a year. It is still unclear how many schools will be able to keep the program going.

A new state report outlines that Montana teens are experiencing increasing rates of depression and other mental illnesses.

For years, health care workers and people who’ve had to travel for family members’ mental health hospitalizations have been pushing Bozeman’s major hospital system, the nonprofit Bozeman Health, to add a behavioral health unit at its Deaconess Hospital. On Sept. 30, the system’s board plans to consider whether to add one as part of an expansion of its mental health services.

Montana’s mental and behavioral health care system is experiencing a generational crisis. “It’s on the verge of collapse,” says Mary Windecker of the Behavioral Health Alliance of Montana.