Officials at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said Monday they are working to answer public information requests regarding recent activity at Kerrville State Hospital.
The hospital’s on-site dental clinic closed Aug. 13, and the long-time superintendent left her position about two weeks later.
Meanwhile, post-COVID staffing concerns have continued to plague the hospital and delayed occupancy of a new maximum-security unit that was completed in 2022.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission oversees the state’s nine adult psychiatric hospitals. Officials there confirmed the Kerrville facility has lacked full staffing since opening the maximum-security unit.
The new wing was completed at a cost of more than $30 million. The 70-bed facility opened in 2023 but remained unoccupied for a long time because there were insufficient employees to staff it.
Thomas Vasquez, media relations spokesperson in the Austin office of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, said that unit currently has 19 patients.
He also said there are currently 47 vacancies at KSH out of roughly 765 full-time positions.
Concerns about the dental clinic came to light in an email to The Kerrville Daily Times’ tip line, when a reader claimed the clinic was closed due to “sanitation issues.”
A spokesperson in the hospital’s community relations office referred inquiries to the state press office.
Jennifer Ruffcorn in the HHSC press office would not confirm or deny the presence of a sanitation issue in the dental clinic, saying only that the clinic was closed for staff training.
“Patients at Kerrville State Hospital continue to receive dental care while our staff undergo additional training to enhance the quality of work,” she said.
Ruffcorn said patients needing dental care are being taken to private dentists in the area. The hospital aims to reopen the clinic by early October, she said.
Another Times reader emailed concerns about staffing levels and pay inequity.
A call seeking comment from KSH Superintendent Leigh Ann Fitzpatrick about the issues revealed that she was no longer employed at the hospital.
Interim Superintendent Sheila Sidlauskas also referred inquiries to the state press office, where Vasquez confirmed that Fitzpatrick’s last day at the hospital was Aug. 26.
Vasquez would not elaborate on Fitzpatrick’s reason for leaving, saying only she resigned “after working in the state hospital for nearly 23 years.”
The newspaper’s public information requests seek memos, emails and letters regarding the dental clinic closure, and about Fitzpatrick’s departure.
Overall, the hospital has a full physical capacity of 290 beds, Vasquez said, with 232 patients as of Sept. 3.
The hospital started accepting forensic patients charged with a crime in 1999, and has predominately been a forensic campus since 2009, he said.
Staffing remains a universal problem for psychiatric hospitals across Texas, as well as for the private sector, where businesses are still struggling with worker shortages after the COVID pandemic.
Texas psychiatric hospitals primarily house civil commitments for people who need a place to recover from a psychiatric emergency. Ordered there by a judge or checked in voluntarily, about 85% of state hospital patients met this definition in 2001, according to a February 2023 report in the San Antonio Express-News.
Today, two-thirds of psychiatric hospital patients arrive because of criminal proceedings.
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