Bexar County commissioners to discuss jail overcrowding, mental health care for inmates<\/a><\/p>\nThe initiative includes coordination with University Health, installation of a modular screening facility at the Justice Intake and Assessment Annex, and a $250,000 budget transfer.<\/p>\n
Under the plan, University Health professionals will staff an on-site medical triage and screening area to evaluate people entering the Bexar County Adult Detention Center as quickly as possible. The initiative is designed to provide comprehensive medical assessments during the intake process, allowing those who need additional care to remain near medical personnel for observation and treatment.<\/p>\n
County officials said the enhanced screening process aims to identify serious medical conditions earlier, improve continuity of care and reduce medical emergencies and unnecessary hospital transports while strengthening correctional health care services.<\/p>\n
Officials said people entering the detention center often arrive with chronic illnesses, mental health disorders, substance use disorders or other medical conditions that may not be immediately apparent, making timely evaluations critical.<\/p>\n
Commissioners also discussed the county jail population, jail facilities and mental health programs. The discussion included Laurel Ridge Treatment Center capacity, progress by the Jail Diversion Ad Hoc Committee, the Meadows Mental Health Institute’s jail behavioral health study and mental health bed capacity, UTHealth Houston recommendations for detainee processing and treatment, and the potential reuse of San Antonio State Hospital buildings for additional mental health beds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Bexar County Commissioners Court unanimously approved the Bexar County Enhanced Medical Screening and Early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-398038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}