Beds in Florida ...

In Florida, DCF officials may soon be in cells next to the hundreds with severe mental illnesses waiting for hospital placement, committed to what DCF claims are nonexistent inpatient beds.

Long waits for placement in state psychiatric hospitals are nothing new in Florida. One man, ordered into care on Oct. 18, 2005, waited 176 days to be transported to a hospital. Two other men, found incompetent in June, waited 82 and 86 days.

Brevard County is acting to create more psychiatric beds - too bad the 288 beds being added aren't in a new psychiatric hospital, but in a new wing of the prison.