The number of state-run psychiatric beds for people who are civilly committed or ordered by the criminal justice system shrunk by 20% in seven years, according to a new report
By Jennifer Brown | SOURCE: THE COLORADO SUN
Colorado has for years been short on in-patient psychiatric beds for people with severe mental illness, creating a backlog that means people wait months for care and sit in jail instead of a hospital.
The last time the national Treatment Advocacy Center released a status report on the psychiatric bed shortage, Colorado placed 34th among states with 543 beds.
It’s only gotten worse in the past seven years, according to the center’s latest analysis, released Wednesday and based on 2023 data.
The number of psychiatric beds at Colorado’s state mental hospitals, in Pueblo and Denver, dropped by 20% — to 482 last year.
And Colorado is third-worst in the nation for the number of people per capita who are waiting for forensic psychiatric beds, which are used to treat people who are found incompetent to face criminal charges or not guilty by reason of insanity.