MONROE — A mentally ill convicted killer has been temporarily committed to Western State Hospital after serving 20 years in the Special Offender Unit of the state prison at Monroe.
The Department of Corrections says Michael McFarland, who is classified by the state as dangerously mentally ill, was referred Wednesday for civil commitment at the mental hospital for 72 hours.
Twenty years ago, McFarland pleaded guilty to stabbing his mother to death Read the rest of this entry »

Linking music to mental and physical health, a fitness instructor and saxophonist is spearheading a drive for MP3 players for clients of a local mental health facility.
Barry O’Toole, a fitness instructor at the West Suburban YMCA in Newton, says the power of music can play a major role in a person’s mental well-being. That’s why he’s organized an MP3 drive for his clients at the Charles Webster Potter Place on Vernon Street, a psycho-social rehabilitation Read the rest of this entry »

An audit of the D.C. Community Services Agency this year found that the city could save as much as $14 million by contracting the bulk of its services to private agencies. Health-care advocates who support the transition said the shift is needed because the agency duplicates many services provided by private clinics.
soon. The plan is expected to recommend shifting most mental health services provided by the Community Services Agency to private Read the rest of this entry »

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Clyde Hoy has only missed one election. It was 2002, and the manic depression he had battled for nearly 20 years had taken hold again, landing him in a state psychiatric hospital.
“I wanted to vote, but I felt that I didn’t have any right at all,” said the 48-year-old Hoy. “I asked and nobody gave me an answer. There wasn’t an option.”
Advocates are working to change that with a nationwide effort to make sure those Read the rest of this entry »

Linking music to mental and physical health, a fitness instructor and saxophonist is spearheading a drive for MP3 players for clients of a local mental health facility.
Barry O’Toole, a fitness instructor at the West Suburban YMCA in Newton, says the power of music can play a major role in a person’s mental well-being. That’s why he’s organized an MP3 drive for his clients at the Charles Webster Potter Place on Vernon Street, a psycho-social rehabilitation Read the rest of this entry »

An audit of the D.C. Community Services Agency this year found that the city could save as much as $14 million by contracting the bulk of its services to private agencies. Health-care advocates who support the transition said the shift is needed because the agency duplicates many services provided by private clinics.
soon. The plan is expected to recommend shifting most mental health services provided by the Community Services Agency to private Read the rest of this entry »

Cesar Chumil, 58, has lived in a three-room suite at Western State Hospital in Staunton for 15 years because the hospital says he is too violent to live among other patients. Still, he is considered safe enough that his family takes him to Wal-Mart, the mall or a restaurant about once a month and he rarely misbehaves. Attorneys protested Chumil’s arrangements to the state oversight committee that since 1993 had signed off on him being locked in the Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Galvin died of a heart attack in August. He was six stone overweight and had high blood pressure; his hair was falling out and he was incapacitated by trembling legs. He was 29.
Daniel’s family believe his symptoms, and his untimely death, were caused by side effects from the powerful psychiatric drugs he had been taking for 14 years. He is, they think, one of thousands of people with mental health problems who have died prematurely because Read the rest of this entry »

The bus driver recognized Tammy’s brother from the flier she had made. Lots of homeless people ride the No. 22 bus, he told her, because the two-hour ride up and down El Camino Real gives them time to catch some sleep.
But he hadn’t seen the bearded guy in the picture lately, so Tammy kept looking.
For a week, Tammy and her father searched all the usual places in San Jose for her brilliant, schizophrenic brother. They called the jail and the hospitals. Read the rest of this entry »

Last updated February 18, 2009 1:32 p.m. PT
MONROE, Wash. — A mentally ill convicted killer has been temporarily committed to Western State Hospital after serving 20 years in the Special Offender Unit of the state prison at Monroe.
The Department of Corrections says Michael McFarland, who is classified by the state as dangerously mentally ill, was referred Wednesday for civil commitment at the mental hospital for 72 hours.
Twenty years ago, Read the rest of this entry »