JEFFERSON COUNTY — It took more than half a year for Brian’s daughter to get a bed at Western State Hospital after she put a bread knife into an electrical outlet at his Tacoma apartment.

A court ruled she needed involuntary psychiatric treatment at the 857-bed facility in Lakewood, but because the waitlist can stretch to more than 100 patients, his daughter instead bounced around Pierce County inpatient treatment centers that provide less-intensive care.

“She was just kind of surviving,”