Touring psychiatrist may free up beds in local ERs

Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2001 | 10:42 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A psychiatrist touring hospitals could free up emergency room space by determining which patients could be released or sent to a state facility, a state mental health official said Tuesday.

Hospitals, particularly University Medical Center, have been complaining that people with mental problems are filling emergency ward beds because the mental health hospital is full.

Dr. David Rosin, medical director of the state Mental Health and Developmental Services Division, said he has a plan to use a half-time psychiatrist to visit the emergency rooms to examine patients and determine if they should be admitted to the mental hospital or be released.

Rosin said one psychiatrist is applying for emergency room privileges at University Medical Center and Valley Hospital Medical Center. He said that once the privilege is approved, the doctor and a social worker will be making the rounds half-time to determine which patients in emergency rooms can be released and who has to be committed.

But Rosin said psychiatrists are in short supply in Southern Nevada. The Mental Health Division in Las Vegas has an authorized staff of 18 psychiatrists but employs less than half that number.

At the Charleston clinic, there is one psychiatrist where there used to be two. The North Las Vegas clinic has one psychiatrist when it is authorized to also have a part-time psychiatrist.

Rosin said Henderson should have one full-time and one part-time psychiatrist, but there is only one. And there is only a part-time psychiatrist at the Desert Inn Clinic when in the past it had a full-time plus a part-time psychiatrist.

While three temporary out-of-state psychiatrists are leaving the division in the next two months, replacements are on the way, with a doctor arriving at the end of this month. Another psychiatrist is taking the competency test this week to qualify to practice in Nevada. And a third out-of-state psychiatrist has applied to be hired.

In addition, a private Las Vegas psychiatrist has signed up to work one day a week for the division. Two other private physicians also have agreed to work four hours apiece each week.

The division in the past has relied on temporary out-of-state psychiatrists to come to Las Vegas to help out. But a new law that went into effect July 1 requires temporary doctors to pass a competency test.

Rosin had asked the state Board of Medical Examiners for help, possibly waiving the examination because some psychiatrists wouldn't come to Nevada on a temporary basis if they had to pass the examination.

But the board said the law does not allow a waiver of the national examination. So Rosin is continuing his national search for doctors who have either taken the competency test in the last year or are willing to take it to qualify in Nevada.

Next week he is recruiting at a major meeting of psychiatrists in Orlando, Fla.