Montana State Hospital

The state psychiatric hospital has a new CEO. This will be the fifth leader of the embattled facility in the past four years.

State lawmakers have overridden Gov. Greg Gianforte’s veto of a bill that will pay county jails for holding inmates awaiting space at the state psychiatric hospital.

The state health department is offering $6.5 million in grant funds to help county jails offer mental health evaluations, medication and stabilization services to inmates. The hope is that inmates on the waiting list for care at the Montana State Hospital can get that care in jail instead.

The state health department could be split in half under a bill that would break up the state’s largest agency.

Montanans with severe mental illnesses that are accused of crimes can languish in jail for more than a year as they wait for a bed at the state psychiatric hospital. New legislation would build a facility for those patients in eastern Montana.

Montanans living with severe mental illness are cycling in and out of ERs, jails, shelters and the state psychiatric hospital. Many never get the long-term help they need. One Missoula woman has been caught in that cycle for years. Her daughter uprooted her life to help. MTPR's Aaron Bolton brings us their story and reports on whether proposed reforms to the state mental health system offer them hope.

Legislation that would allow the state psychiatric hospital to deny court-ordered commitments is on hold. State health officials and advocates disagree about whether more patients can be served in the community.

State health officials want to add more facilities for discharged state hospital patients who need support reentering their community.

A disability rights watchdog group is suing Anaconda-Deer Lodge County, saying it violated a Montana State Hospital patient’s right to vote.

The state’s only psychiatric hospital for adults won’t apply for federal recertification for at least another year. Construction at the Montana State Hospital is holding up the process.