Judge calls Maryland's psychiatric bed backlog a constitutional crisis and rejects the health department's plan
Health department officials told Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Ronald Silkworth, at a hearing he had ordered, how they plan to shrink the backlog, including a 'waitlist challenge' to coordinate discharges and admissions that they credited with lowering the waitlist from a record 240 in February to 225. The department said getting a defendant into a regional hospital takes about 57 days on average, and close to six months for the maximum-security hospital, far beyond the 10-day statutory limit.
The department said it has added 63 psychiatric beds since 2019, but budget limits are holding up roughly 150 more, including 60 at Clifton T. Perkins, whose 289 beds were at risk after regulators found HVAC and plumbing problems. A deputy public defender asked how the plan would get the waitlist below its current level. Silkworth said this is not a waitlist issue but a constitutional crisis, and doubted the plan had 'any meat to it.'
Source: Judge rips Maryland Health Department plan for psychiatric bed crisis: 'This is about people' — The Baltimore Banner, by Alex Mann
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