Good morning everyone. I’m Terry Crocker. I am the CEO of Tropical Texas Behavioral Health.
We are the local mental health authority for Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy counties and one of 38 similar centers in the state.
We’ve grown to about the fourth largest company in Texas, a testament to the great need for the type of services we provide in the Rio Grande Valley.
We are very happy that this hospital is coming to RGV. It would have the most profound impact on the behavioral health services system in the Valley’s history.
I have now been the CEO of Tropical for about 22 years. When I started at Tropical, we were sending an average of 45 people each month from the Valley to more distant locations like San Antonio State Hospital and Austin State Hospital for inpatient psychiatric care.
Those people had to be transported by law enforcement. There have been repercussions, with law enforcement officers forced out of office and detained for far too long.
Rio Grande State Center, the state mental health facility in Harlingen, is the cornerstone of our work, but as Dr. (Carlos) Cárdenas said, we need an acute level of care to address the entire RGV. There are only 54 beds available locally to provide. (Population) Approximately 1.4 million people. By comparison, San Antonio has a population of about 1.4 million. The state mental health facility has 300 beds (comparison), but we have 54 beds, creating a significant barrier to care in the Valley.
Thanks to partnerships with private inpatient psychiatric facilities like DHR and funding from the state of Texas, we were able to bring this number down relatively significantly, and we’re very proud of that. However, provision and access to care remains at the state mental health facility level.
And today, our partners at DHR are taking a major step toward closing the disparities in care that have existed for far too long.
I want to say to state officials and other stakeholders and our advocates who are here today: Please note that RGV does not yet have a state mental health facility level of care for children and youth. Please. This is a clear need in our service system and I encourage all of us to keep pushing for it.
This new facility will dramatically change the landscape of the behavioral health field for the better. It will draw clinical providers to our area. It serves as an anchor to the people we educate and train locally. It will increase the Rio Grande Valley’s volume on issues related to behavioral health. And the command will appear in all tables where such decisions are being made (scheduled).
Today is a good day for RGV. The day this facility opens for business is definitely going to be a great day.
Thank you to DHR for taking on this challenge. Tropical Texas Behavioral Health will continue to be by your side and strengthen our partnership as the Valley’s behavioral health care infrastructure. thank you.
Editor’s Note: The above commentary was provided by Terry Crocker at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new DHR Health Behavioral Hospital in Pharr, Texas. Mr. Crocker is CEO of Tropical Texas Behavioral Health.
