Need for mental hospital questioned

Friday, Jan. 24, 2003 | 9:46 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Sen. Sandra Tiffany on Thursday challenged Gov. Kenny Guinn's plans to build a $32 million psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas and questioned whether Guinn's blueprint for expansion of mental health services in Southern Nevada complies with federal law.

During the Senate Finance and the Assembly Ways and Means committees' review of Nevada's Mental Health and Developmental Service, Tiffany, R-Henderson, suggested that the division was headed in the wrong direction with its proposed two-year operating budget of $192.8 million, an increase of 32 percent from the previous biennium.

"Isn't building a 150-bed hospital flying in the face of the Olmstead Act?" Tiffany asked, referring to a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that told governments to develop more opportunities in the communities for individuals with disabilities.

The ruling calls for the bulk of services for mental patients to be in the community and not in a hospital, Tiffany said. She suggested that private industry might be able to provide the services at a lower cost.

Carlos Brandenburg, the division director, said there will be an emphasis on expanding community services and that should keep anyone from being able to win a lawsuit against the city for alleged violations of the Olmstead Act.

"But other states are not building new hospitals," Tiffany said.

Brandenburg replied that other states are not facing the "tremendous pressures" of fast-growing Nevada. Many of those other states already have hospitals.

"We still need to have a core hospital," Brandenburg said.

While the new hospital is being built, the existing mental services center would be increased from 88 beds to its full 103-bed capacity with more staff. The state budget for mental health services in Clark County would rise by 35 percent to $109.9 million. Of the proposed 88 new employees in the division, 71 will be located in Southern Nevada.