Task force offers way to cut costs on alcoholics, mentally ill

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Friday, Sept. 13, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.

A group that has studied the problem of mental illness and alcoholism in Nevada since 1999 unveiled a proposal to a regional planning panel Thursday that could save the state more than $16 million a year.

Nevada spends at least $20 million a year shuffling drunks and the mentally ill through emergency rooms and jails, instead of getting them the treatment they need, said Janelle Kraft, budget director for Metro Police and a member of the task force that wrote the report.

"Metro Police alone is housing more mentally ill each year than the state mental health system," Kraft said.

In jail costs alone, this cost the state nearly $2.7 million in 2001, she said.

Drunks and the mentally ill also took up valuable space in the Las Vegas Valley's emergency rooms last year, to the tune of $17 million, she said.

Then there's the cost of transporting them to and from jails and hospitals, which reached nearly $2 million.

"I don't think the taxpayer realizes the cost these patients represent to them," Kraft said.

The task force's plan offers an alternative for at least half of the 12,000 patients in the two categories -- many of whom are both alcoholic and mentally ill, as well as homeless and uninsured.

They would be treated at a new facility to be built at Westcare, a Las Vegas nonprofit that currently runs the valley's only detoxification center.

The facility would cost about $4.2 million per year to run, at a savings of at least $16 million. It would include nursing and psychiatric care, as well as transportation.

Patients would also receive more extended care -- up to three days instead of the 24 hours common in emergency rooms -- and more detailed referrals to continued treatment, Westcare Vice President James Osti said.

The proposal would also free up valuable emergency room space, he said.

"Just think -- you have an accident; how do you feel when you can't get a bed in the emergency room and you're waiting for hours? This plan would reduce some of the pressure on the valley's hospitals."

Nationally about one out of four emergency room patients are there for mental health or substance abuse-related problems, Osti said. Though that figure isn't available for Southern Nevada, the state's current mental health budget is at the same level it was in 1992 -- without adjusting for inflation. Population has doubled in the same period.

The key for the proposal to move from paper to reality will be in the funding. The task force's initial formula calls for a third each to come from the valley's municipalities and its hospitals and other sources such as grants.

Input from the budget staffs of the municipalities will be gathered in the coming weeks, and a revised financial plan will be submitted to the regional planning coalition's technical committee next month.

"I don't hear the cities saying they don't want to do it," Thom Reilly, Clark County manager, said. "We just have to look at the funding mix more closely."

If the plan is approved, the coalition could approve or reject it at its Oct. 24 meeting.