Mental Health Month Updates: Texas Lacks Hospital Beds And Adequate Supply For Psychological Care Despite More Funds

Texas grapples to deliver adequate facilities and psychiatric care for mental patients despite funding from lawmakers. Patients are on waiting lists for hospital beds and private facilities do not meet the state's population growth.

Stephanie Contreras, the executive director of the Grande Valley affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and has a son, who has schizoaffective disorder said that his son was turned away from state's hospitals because they were full. She further said that her son was emotionally traumatized by the difficulty of getting into high-quality psychiatric care. He had also the difficulty of having the shifting team of medical professionals. She reiterated that from time after time, there would no beds in the valley.

This is a public health emergency, according to advocates for people with mental illness. They encourage the Texas lawmakers to finance more hospital beds in 2017. On the other hand, they said that where those beds would go--and where the money would materialize from to pay for them--remains to be seen, as stated by Texas Tribune. They have troubled on the decline in the number of beds in relation to the state's population, which is from 11.3 to 10.5 beds for 100,000 people from 2013 to 2015.

Meanwhile, the Texas lawmakers are pointing to having new funding that urges the mental health professionals to work in underserved areas. They are also imposing the new telemedicine regulations that are planned to make patients connect with psychiatrist easily.

Sen. Jane Nelson, the Senate's chief budget writer and former Health and Human Services Committee said that Texas had invested "significant resources" in mental health care in recent years. The public expenditures on mental health care were about $192 million from the 2013 session to the 2015 session.

She further said that there was a total of $483 million for mental health spending from Medicaid, which is the joint state-federal insurance program for the poor and disabled. Nelson said in an emailed statement that they have serious challenges to address, but she wants to make sure they have a true understanding of their commitment to mental health.