Lost Patients Live: First-Person Stories from Seattle's Mental Health Crisis
Focus: Adults in the Room
KUOW News and Information
4.9 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2024
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lost Patients compares the system for treating mental illness in America to an elaborate house, where every room, hallway and staircase was designed independently by a different architect. So what is it like to be shuttled from room to room? What sorts of tradeoffs are doctors working within this system forced to make every day? And what might it look like to design care around the needs of patients?
KUOW and the Seattle Times convened a forum at the Seattle Public Library to hear perspectives and answer questions. Featured guests included:
- Laura Van Tosh, patient advocate and founder and convener of Mental Health Policy Roundtable
- Carolynn Ponzoha, patient advocate and content creator who goes by @psychotic.in.seattle on TikTok
- Timothy Jolliff, acting senior director of clinical programs at the Downtown Emergency Service Center in Seattle
- Dr. Paul Borghesani, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine
You can find resources for people with mental illness and related stories from The Seattle Times and KUOW here:
https://www.seattletimes.com/component/lost-patients-podcast/
https://www.kuow.org/podcasts/lost-patients
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Public media counts on your support to ensure that the reporting and programs you depend on thrive. |
| 0:06.3 | Make a recurring donation today to get special access to more than 20 NPR podcasts, perks like sponsor-free listening, bonus episodes, early access, and more. |
| 0:16.8 | So start supporting what you love today at plus.npr.org. |
| 0:23.9 | Hey, this is Will James. In the weeks since the last episode of Lost Patients came out, we've |
| 0:30.1 | gotten hundreds of messages from across the country from listeners who live with serious mental |
| 0:35.5 | illness or have family members who do or work with |
| 0:39.4 | patients who do. And a lot of these messages say the same thing, that the problems captured |
| 0:45.6 | in the series feel achingly familiar, that they live these realities. And they want to know, |
| 0:53.6 | what do we do now? How do we fix psychiatric care for people |
| 0:58.1 | with serious mental illness? Well, last month, in May 24, we had a chance to dig into some of |
| 1:05.4 | these questions at a live event by KUW Public Radio and the Seattle Times. It was at the Seattle Public Library right |
| 1:13.4 | in the heart of downtown Seattle, where many of these failures are very visible. It was a conversation |
| 1:20.9 | between us, the reporters who made the series, plus some experts, people who live with serious |
| 1:26.9 | mental illness or work in that field. |
| 1:30.3 | And what we're about to share with you is a recording of that live event. In this conversation, |
| 1:35.4 | we dig deeper into some of the ideas in lost patients, like the role of involuntary commitment |
| 1:42.0 | and the relationship between drug use and mental illness. |
| 1:46.1 | We reflect on making the series |
| 1:48.1 | and explain why we told this story the way we did. |
| 1:53.5 | We answer some really insightful |
| 1:55.8 | and sometimes challenging questions from listeners, |
| 1:59.6 | and we look to the future and try to glimpse how mental health care might change. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KUOW News and Information, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of KUOW News and Information and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.