Texas inmates wait longer for state hospital treatment even after a funding increase, AP reports
The Associated Press, in a story carried by Houston Public Media, followed a woman with intellectual disability and mental illness who had been jailed in Austin for fourteen months after being found unfit to stand trial. State figures showed the average wait for a maximum-security inpatient bed had almost doubled over two years to 127 days, and the average for people with both mental illness and intellectual disability was 417 days because only one unit served that group.
Texas had the fourth-longest waits in the country in a 2016 Treatment Advocacy Center survey, and the state's own numbers showed delays growing since. State hospitals held 1,239 inmates at the start of 2017, up from 1,144 in 2015, but a legislator said the increase had not kept pace with population growth. A 2015 appropriation of $50 million paid for private-hospital beds for civil patients to free up state capacity.
Disability Rights Texas said its class-action lawsuit over the delays remained pending, and lawmakers were weighing further mental-health funding before the session ended.
Source: Mentally ill languish in Texas jails despite funding hike — Houston Public Media (AP), by Associated Press
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