Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Plans to build mental hospital opposed

Residents in a western Las Vegas neighborhood are upset about a proposal to build the valley's sorely needed 190-bed psychiatric hospital near their homes.

"It's sort of a turning point for this community," said Sue Brna, who lives near the state land along Jones and Oakey boulevards where officials want to build the hospital.

There already is a cluster of government social services and other institutions in the area, including Community College of Southern Nevada's Charleston campus, she said.

"Our community is supporting the whole valley," she said. "We're being saturated.

"I don't think it's fair."

Dr. Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the state Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services, said area residents need to keep in mind that there is a lack of mental health service in Nevada and in the Las Vegas Valley. Brandenburg said the national average is 33 state psychiatric hospital beds per 100,000 people; in Clark County, he said, that number is 4.5 per 100,000.

That is compounded by the fact that the valley has lost 90 private beds since 2000, 80 from Charter and 10 from Valley hospitals, Brandenburg said. That represented a 44 percent drop in the number of private beds, he said. "As the valley is reducing its private psychiatric beds there is more of a need for the public (facility)," he said.

The lack of psychiatric hospital beds leaves emergency rooms as the last resort for psychiatric patients. Brandenburg said people can wait up to 50 hours for treatment, with anywhere from 20 to 40 people waiting.

The site being proposed for the hospital makes sense because the state, which plans to spend about $32 million on the hospital and hopes to open it in 2006, already owns the land. The property is adjacent to both its Desert Regional Center, which helps adults with developmental disabilities, and the Southern Nevada Adult mental health services center.

The state operates a 103-bed facility there, which Brandenburg said would be turned into a facility for Alzheimer's patients. The state presence on the land was established in the 1960s, he said.

"I'm sure in the early '60s we were on the outskirts of town. All of a sudden the community has grown around us," Brandenburg said.

He said the state has "been good neighbors, (we've had) hardly any escapes, hardly any folks roaming the neighborhoods." He added that the hospital actually might add security to the neighborhood: "We have security throughout the campus."

The current centers do not accept violent patients, and neither would the new hospital, he said. Patients accused of criminal acts are sent to a facility in Sparks, he said.

Approval of a site and construction of the hospital still has to be run through a long process. Plans have to go through city staff, and the Planning Commission must vote on it before passing the final decision along to Las Vegas City Council.

"It's not a done deal yet," said Las Vegas City Councilwoman Janet Moncrief, whose Ward 1 includes the proposed site. She said it is too soon for her to take a stand on the issue.

State Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, said she has met with constituents throughout the session, and understands both sides.

"I understand the state wanting to have it there, because the services are together, and I understand the people not wanting it there," she said. "Their feeling is we have everything here, why do we need one more thing.

"I told them if it goes I am very insistent the neighborhood be able to be involved in every aspect -- if the city approves it."

Dottie Silver is another one of the neighbors opposing the hospital.

"We're not opposed to the hospital per se, we know they need the facility," she said. But with the number of government agencies already in place, the Opportunity Village for the homeless, and a number of schools nearby, "we don't think it's the proper place," she said.

She and Brna worried that the new state building would preclude the Community College from future expansion. An expansion of the college "would be conducive to what is in the area," Brna said.

They also worry about property values dropping if the hospital is built in their neighborhood.

"If they put this in, people will move. When you start losing those homeowners, it becomes renters, slum landlords from California ... this area will go down," Brna said. "I look at this from what this whole area is doing, and I think we've done enough."

archive