Bed closures at Colorado's state psychiatric hospital linked to jail suicides
Colorado Public Radio reported that 347 people were waiting beyond the state's 28-day legal deadline for competency evaluation or restoration, one of them for 325 days, after nursing shortages forced the closure of three units — 70 beds in all — at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. The reporting linked the backlog to two 2021 jail suicides among men awaiting transfer to the hospital.
The story was one of several in this backfill where a hospital staffing problem, rather than a lack of statutory deadlines or legal pressure, was the direct cause of a life-threatening delay — a pattern that recurred later in Illinois and elsewhere.
Source: Jailed Coloradans waiting longer and longer for competency services, with sometimes tragic consequences — Colorado Public Radio, by Allison Sherry
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