Texas psychiatric beds go offline for staffing as the forensic waitlist passes 2,500
According to Health and Human Services data cited by Houston Public Media, 842 inpatient psychiatric beds at state hospitals were not in use in late 2022 because of staffing shortages, up from 717 when the agency first disclosed the problem to a House committee in June. The agency said about 1,400 fewer full-time employees were working in the hospitals than in November 2019 and had asked the Legislature for pay raises and more than $34 million for workforce needs.
The waitlist had grown past 2,500, most of them waiting for forensic beds where people found incompetent to stand trial receive restoration treatment, so hundreds remained in jail. The head of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute called the offline capacity unprecedented and said partner-run hospitals were operating at full capacity.
The article was corrected the day after publication to fix statements about which hospital was fully staffed and about the cause of the offline beds.
Source: Waitlist grows for psychiatric beds at state hospitals in Texas — Houston Public Media, by Sara Willa Ernst
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