Hundreds of people who aren\u2019t mentally well enough to stand trial for alleged crimes are sitting in county jails across Colorado, waiting for treatment. There\u2019s said not to be enough room at the state mental hospital in Pueblo for everyone who needs care, but now the hospital\u2019s opening 39 new beds\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(CO Needs Mental Health Nurses wrap\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 :54)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state says as many as 60 new beds are actually needed, but the hospital doesn\u2019t have the staff to do that right now. Hiring nurses became a bigger challenge after the pandemic. The facility only hired 4 nurses in all of last year, so the state Human Services department started offering incentives like hiring bonuses of up to 14 thousand dollars, 5% pay increases, and more. They went from those 4 new nurses, to hiring another 20 new since March of this year. Leora Joseph is the state\u2019s Director of Civil and Forensic Mental Health\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
230721 L Joseph- lack of care stops cases\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 :11\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Q:\u2026day in court\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state says it hopes to continue offering those incentive-filled packages \u2018til next January. There\u2019s also a financial incentive for the state to open those additional beds\u2014 the Department of Health & Human Services is under a legal order right now for failure to give timely treatment. If it continues not to, it\u2019ll get fined 20 million dollars a year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
TAG\u2014 Joseph adds that on average, suspects who need mental treatment in a hospital setting have been on waiting lists more than 3 months long, some up to a year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of people who aren\u2019t mentally well enough to stand trial for alleged crimes are sitting in county jails across Colorado, waiting for treatment. There\u2019s said not to be enough room at the state mental hospital in Pueblo for everyone who needs care, but now the hospital\u2019s opening 39 new beds\u2026 (CO Needs Mental Health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rnrnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rockymountainnewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}