Texas hospital staffing emergency looms as a record 2,100 people wait in jail for competency restoration
KXAN covered the January 26 meeting of the Joint Committee on Access and Forensic Services. Records showed over 2,100 people on the waitlist, a record, and nearly a third of funded state hospital beds, 731 of 2,241, unusable because of staffing shortages and pandemic-related problems. A committee member said the state needed an emergency action plan and floated calling in the National Guard; the new chairman, a sheriffs' association representative, warned the system would break because counties cannot find enough employees.
An HHSC deputy executive commissioner said $5,000 hiring bonuses had been advertised but applications had dropped from about 15,000 a month before the pandemic to about 6,000. For the first time the committee also released waitlist data by race and ethnicity, showing Black people waited longer on average for maximum-security beds than white or Hispanic people.
Source: State hospital staffing 'emergency' looms as record 2,100 wait in jail for treatment — KXAN (Austin), by David Barer, Josh Hinkle
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