By C1 Staff
SEATTLE — A class action lawsuit over delays in medical treatment for mentally ill inmates is scheduled to go to trial Monday in federal court.
NWPR reports that mentally ill inmates in Washington state often wait weeks or even months to receive evaluations to see if they’re competent to stand trial.
The state has a performance target of seven days, but records show that inmates wait between 50 and 60 days for competency evaluations.
The state admits that the wait times are “excessive and indefensible.”
An assistant secretary at Washington’s Department of Social and Health Services says the agency has been receiving more and more requests for competency evaluations from judges, creating a backlog of inmates waiting for treatment to get them well enough to stand trial.
“During the time that this demand for service has gone up, our staffing and the number of beds at the state hospitals available to provide these services has remained unchanged,” she said.
The agency has recently been given the green light by lawmakers and the governor to hire three new competency evaluators and open up 15 additional hospital beds.
The governor has also signed a law that mandates a new 14-day standard for DSHS to provide a competency evaluation to a jail inmate.
The trial will decide if that’s fast enough.