Texas state hospitals stay full as the competency waitlist hovers near a record 1,500
KXAN reported that the Health and Human Services Commission's Joint Committee on Access and Forensic Services heard that wait times for a state hospital bed remained high. The waitlist peaked at 1,508 in December 2020 and had hovered near 1,475 since. In May 2021 the average wait for a non-maximum-security bed was 153 days, down from 204 the month before, while the average for a maximum-security bed jumped 57 percent to 510 days, which officials said they would examine as a possible outlier.
The state normally has about 2,240 beds, and the pandemic had knocked nearly 300 offline since April 2020. Officials said they were studying faster discharge of long-term patients to free beds and were optimistic the waitlist would fall if offline beds returned. KXAN noted its May 2020 'Locked in Limbo' investigation had already shown the waitlist rising before COVID-19.
Source: Texas state mental hospitals remain full, hundreds still waiting in jail for beds — KXAN (Austin), by David Barer
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