The Colorado Department of Human Services says it has cleared a backlog of inmates who had to wait months in some cases for court-ordered mental health evaluations and treatments.
In a letter sent to Disability Law Colorado on Jan. 29, the department said long-term and immediate changes implemented in 2015 have dissolved the list of inmates — none yet convicted of the charges — waiting for services.
Iris Eytan, one of the attorneys pursuing a lawsuit against the department, said the law center has not yet verified that the backlog is cleared. She said the center is in the “process of investigating the claims made in the letter.”
Even if CDHS has eliminated the backlog, the department still faces a lawsuit alleging that it violated a federal settlement agreement by allowing the waitlist to form in the first place. That question will be answered in March after a two-day hearing in U.S. District Court in Denver.
“Pretrial detainees are no longer waiting in jail beyond the time frames originally agreed upon by the parties,” the letter read. “Thus, concerns about their rights being compromised due to delayed admission should be alleviated.”
Dr. Patrick Fox, chief medical officer for the Human Services Department, said an increase in staff last year played a large role in eliminating the waitlist. To help keep future wait times down, CDHS must work with judges and attorneys to “ensure that people who are being referred for in-patient competency evaluations really need an in-patient level of observation.”
Defendants who do not require in-patient services should have their competency evaluations completed without being admitted to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo or to the jail-based restoration programs, Fox said.
“Those are limited resources and we want to make sure that the way we use those resources is appropriate,” Fox said.
In September, lawmakers approved $2.7 million to help hire additional psychologists to perform competency evaluations and add 30 beds to the jail-based restoration programs. The $4 million needed to fund the additional psychologists and beds for the following year has not yet been approved.
Clearing the backlog, however, does not halt ongoing litigation against the state.
The law center in October asked a federal judge to reopen a lawsuit filed against CDHS in 2011 and require the department, which handles competency evaluations ordered by judges, to eliminate the waitlist.
In their filing, the law center revealed a directive at the state hospital to admit only one person a day. That directive led to a waitlist of an estimated 100 inmates.
The law center also accused the the state of providing misleading or false information to cover up the backlog.
CDHS acknowledged implementing a temporary policy to admit one patient a day at the hospital and said staff entering the data failed to account for the policy change. It also argued that an unrelenting increase in the number of evaluations being ordered and staffing issues were problems outside of the state’s control.
The department argued that reopening the case was premature and the issues should be solved through mediation.
On Dec. 18, a federal judge wrote that CDHS’s request for mediation “puts the cart before the horse” and agreed to reopen the case.
The settlement agreement was a result of the law center’s 2011 lawsuit claiming CDHS was failing to provide timely evaluations and treatments. In 2012, the law center and CDHS reached a compromise meant to ensure that hundreds of criminal defendants spend less time waiting for state doctors to determine whether they’re fit to continue their cases and provide treatment if they are not.
The agreement requires the department to complete in-jail evaluations 30 days after they are ordered or admit people to the state hospital for in-patient evaluations within 28 days. If defendants are found to be incompetent, they must be admitted to the hospital or an in-jail treatment program within 28 days.
Jordan Steffen: 303-954-1794, jsteffen@denverpost.com or @jsteffendp