Mental health care burden worsens

Valerie Miller

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.

The closure of Charter Behavior Systems of Nevada hospital this month will cut by almost one-third the total number of beds available to Southern Nevadans who need inpatient mental health care.

And it was unclear this morning who would fill that void.

Charter Behavioral Systems LLC announced the closing Thursday of its 84-bed hospital at 7000 W. Spring Mountain Road as part of a nationwide restructuring. There are 278 beds for mental health patients in the Las Vegas Valley, but 28 of them are restricted to senior citizens.

Charter operates one of the two private psychiatric hospitals locally and two outpatient facilities, which also will close. It also provides mobile assessment teams to help Metro Police and other emergency workers evaluate mental health needs in their daily work.

"The patients currently at Charter will either be discharged to our patient treatment or referred back to their physicians," Elena Madsen, Charter's director of business development, said. She said 29 patients were left in the hospital on Monday.

The burden for mental health care inpatient treatment will now fall on the remaining private facility, the 80-bed Montevista Hospital, 5900 W. Rochelle Ave., which is owned by Behavior Healthcare Corp. of Nashville, Tenn.

It was unclear this morning whether Montevista had plans to expand its facility to handle patients who must now leave the Charter hospital.

Thomas Maher, chief executive officer of Charter in Las Vegas, said that he doubts that one hospital can meet the demands of the large number of valley residents who would use private mental health facilities.

"Montevista definitely can't take up the slack, because this is definitely more than a one-hospital town," Maher said. "Outside of them, there is only the Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Care facility." The state also has a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital and treatment facility, Desert Willow, on the same site as the adult hospital.

The Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health facility, 6161 W. Charleston Blvd., handles mostly poor patients and those on Medicare, though it does not exclude those with insurance, Director Dr. James Northrop said.

The gap left by the closing of Charter, which opened in Las Vegas in 1986, could also put a strain on Metro Police and emergency rooms, Maher said.

"The biggest and most significant impact is going to be with the police and emergency rooms," he said. "We provided mobile assessments with both the police and the emergency rooms, so we could get the people out of custody and out of the emergency rooms and into the appropriate treatment facilities."

Montevista Hospital does plan to beef up its mobile assessment teams to pick up some of the slack with Metro and emergency workers, Allan Kydd, chief executive officer of the Las Vegas facility, said.

"Montevista called me yesterday and said they are prepared to increase their staff to handle the needs," Lt. Marc Joseph, Metro spokesman said.

The private hospitals provide the bulk of services to insured adults with mental health needs that require hospitalization. Valley and Lake Mead hospitals provide a total of 28 beds for inpatient psychiatric services to senior citizens.

"Closing Charter Hospital affects especially those who have insurance or other resources like Medicare who could go there," Clark County's Assistant Director of Social Services Bertha Warrick said. The county has a contract with Charter to provide evaluations and use the mobile crisis intervention team.

Now the county will rely primarily on Montevista and the state mental health facility, Warrick said.

The Charter closure also will force its 135 full- and part-time employees to find other jobs, Madsen said.

Charter is primarily owned by Crescent Operating Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas.

The closing surprised employees, including Madsen, she said. "I'll be out of work now and I've been in this business for seven years," she said. Madsen said that while she feels confident that she will soon find employment elsewhere, she is concerned about her fellow workers.

Leslie Neeland, the director of nursing at Charter's Las Vegas facility for nearly three years, shares Madsen's concerns.

"While I'm confident I can find employment as a nurse, I'm worried that I won't be able to find a job like this that I enjoy doing."

Neeland said that a problem facing some of her nurses and technicians is that their training is specialized in the psychiatric field, which has a limited number of jobs available in Las Vegas. Other psychiatric nurses may be forced to take jobs in operating hospitals locally unless they leave the state to seek psychiatric jobs out of town.

"A lot of my nurses don't want to leave the area and move their families because this is their home," Neeland said. The employees have not been offered any benefit package, she added.

Employees are being laid off as the number of remaining patients at the facility decreases, Maher said. "We have let two employees go since Thursday," she said.

Efforts are being made to place the employees in new jobs, according to Madsen, who said employees were being helped with compiling and sending out resumes.

The hardest part, Madsen and Neeland agreed, will be saying good-bye to a staff that is tight knit.

"There is tremendous sadness here, because we are like a family," Neeland said. "It has been so easy to work with staff here. This is the closest I've ever come to a dream job."