Mental Health

When budget cuts led Western Montana Mental Health Center to start curtailing its services five years ago, rural communities primarily felt the effect. But as the decline of one of the state’s largest mental health providers has continued, it’s left a vacuum in behavioral health care.

A bill moving through the Legislature would allow students who are being bullied to fight back in self-defense without repercussions from the school.

One of the largest mental health providers in Montana is suspending operation of 31 of its crisis beds — two-thirds of its total number of beds.

Montana, which perennially has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, also has a youth suicide rate twice the national average, according to a study released last year by the state Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Montana lawmakers are considering a publicly funded mental health model that advocates say could increase access to care.

Billings Clinic, the Rehabilitation Hospital of Montana, RiverStone Health and St. Vincent Healthcare published the county’s sixth community needs assessment since 2005 on Wednesday.

The state’s only psychiatric hospital for adults has been discharging patients to homeless shelters with no plan for care and sometimes without medications, according to a report from a designated watchdog group.

Bozeman Health is investing around $2 million this year to expand crisis care at Bozeman Health Deaconess Regional Medical Center.

Bozeman residents and business owners gathered at a downtown coffee shop this week to remember the life of artist Dennis Claude Dungan, known as “Buzzard.”

A “shooting incident” involving one person happened at the Montana VA’s Fort Harrison Campus near Helena Thursday morning, according to a statement from the Montana VA. The hospital has been secured and appointments have resumed.