Dallas adding 296 new psychiatric beds to Texas supply

Why it matters: Texas ranked 44th overall in Mental Health America's latest annual report, dropping from 27th last year, largely due to increasing costs of seeing a doctor for mental health treatment in the state.

• Texas ranks last in the country specifically for access to mental health care and third for prevalence of mental illnesses, according to the 2022 report.

State of play: Texas has been allocating money to construction projects to add psychiatric beds to state hospitals since 2017, when a legislative committee warned that investing in mental health care was "one of the most critical areas of concern."

• Some current campuses were built in the 1850s and a lack of psychiatric beds strains emergency rooms and the criminal justice system.

Zoom out: The first new state-run psychiatric hospital in 25 years opened this spring in Houston.

Zoom in: The Dallas County jail has hundreds of inmates awaiting transfer to state psychiatric facilities because of a lack of statewide beds.

Details: The Texas Health and Human Services Commission partnered with UT Southwestern Medical Center to design and build the 296-bed, $482.5 million psychiatric hospital in Dallas.

• Children's Health donated $200 million toward the project for a pediatric wing that will dedicate 96 beds to young patients.
• The state is paying the other $282.5 million.
• Construction is expected to finish in 2025.

The bottom line: The psychiatric facilities in Dallas and Houston will join expanded hospital capacity in Austin, San Antonio, Kerrville and Rusk, for a total of 670 new inpatient treatment beds in the state by 2026.