Montevista Hospital hoping to fill gap when Charter closes

Valerie Miller

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2000 | 11:36 a.m.

Montevista Hospital, one of two private mental health hospitals in the Las Vegas Valley, plans to increase its capacity by 20 percent in the wake of Charter Behavioral Systems of Nevada's announcement that it will close its doors.

The closure of Charter, the only other local private mental health hospital, will reduce by almost one-third the number of beds available for inpatient adult mental heath care, and will make Montevista the only private psychiatric hospital in the Las Vegas Valley.

Montevista plans to add 20-30 beds in the wake of the closure.

"We are already receiving an increase in calls," Leigh Buis, Montevista's director of assessment and referral, said Wednesday on "POV Vegas," the Las Vegas Sun's news-discussion show on Cox channels 1 and 39.

"This is time where we all have to work together to meet the needs of the Las Vegas community."

Montevista Hospital, 5900 W. Rochelle Ave., has 80 beds. Charter, 7000 West Spring Mountain Road, is an 84-bed facility.

A total of 278 beds are available in Southern Nevada for adult mental health patients, but 28 of them are restricted to senior citizens.

The impending closure of Charter, owned primarily by Crescent Operating, Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, is the result of a restructuring that will reduce the its number of beds nationwide from 8,000 to 5,500.

Charter will close its doors as soon as the last patient is released, Leslie Neeland, director of nursing at Charter said. As of Monday, Charter had 28 patients.

"The patients here now will either be released to outpatient treatment or referred to a physician," Elena Madsen, Charter's director of business development, said.

Charter's inpatient facility and its two outpatient facilities employ 135 people, and Montevista said it is already helping place the Charter workers.

"We have already hired some of the people from Charter and we will be trying to place more next week," Buis said.

Montevista Hospital is owned by Behavioral Health Corp. of Nashville, Tenn., which could likely offer jobs to Charter employees in out-of-state facilities as well, Buis said.

Employees of Charter have not given up hope, though, that a last-minute miracle may occur and save the facility.

"I think that this could be a very profitable operation for a private investor, if one took over," Charter Chief Executive Officer Thomas Maher said.