A Kansas Senate bill would allocate $11.8 million to open and operate hospital beds for youths requiring short-term psychiatric care in Hays, Garden City and surrounding areas, officials said Wednesday.
Sen. Richard Billinger, R-Goodland, spoke Wednesday in favor of the bill, which would create two dozen new acute psychiatric beds in western Kansas. He said currently, families in those areas drive two to three hours to Wichita or as far as Kansas City to get lifesaving psychiatric services for their children.
“We’re waiting for one of these children to hurt themselves or someone else, and then it’s going to be too late for a bill like this,” Billinger said.
(Read more: News – Dodge City Daily Globe – Dodge City, KS)
