Funding sought for ER crisis

Tuesday, March 4, 2003 | 9:07 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A Senate committee was urged Monday to allocate more than $600,000 a year to relieve a crisis in which Clark County hospital emergency rooms are being filled by people with drinking, drug and mental problems.

Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, told the Senate Finance Committee that sometimes as many as 50 patients are "stacked up" in emergency wards because of the wait for beds in the state mental health system.

Richard Steinberg, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit health care organization WestCare, said the local governments and the hospitals have formed a $3.8 million-a-year program to help treat those patients.

Steinberg said the state is already providing close to $600,000 and another $600,000 is needed annually for the program.

Janelle Kraft, co-chairwoman of the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition's Task Force on Emergency Room Overcrowding, said the chronic inebriates are causing the crisis.

She said those people don't need emergency medical care, but other kinds of help such as counseling.

Kathryn Landreth, chairwoman of the Southern Nevada Mental Health Coalition, said the triage center at WestCare could help solve the problem. She said 31 police officers have graduated from a program designed to handle the cases.

Under the program, chronic inebriates would be taken to WestCare, where they would receive immediate care instead of filling emergency hospital space.

As it stands, some of those people stay in hospital emergency rooms for 72 hours -- and in at least one case for nine days -- before beds open up in the state mental health center.

In some cases, the people with mental or alcohol problems are discharged from the emergency rooms without help, only to return to the emergency rooms later, according to testimony.

The committee is expected to make a decision on Senate Bill 151 later in the session.