Editorial: Dealing with the challenges

Monday, Oct. 13, 2003 | 9:16 a.m.

It's been clear for a long time that mental health services have been in short supply in this state. In one of the most telling examples, the national average is 33 state psychiatric beds for every 100,000 residents; in Clark County we barely have been getting by with 4.5 state psychiatric beds per 100,000 people. Dr. Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the state Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services, has noted that the lack of a state psychiatric hospital has ramifications far beyond the care of mentally ill patients. It has meant that some of these patients take up space at emergency rooms in general-purpose hospitals that already are overcrowded and are ill-equipped for psychiatric care.

Budget cuts made during the early 1990s did serious damage to the state's mental health programs, but in recent years the Legislature and Gov. Kenny Guinn have made improvements, including during the recent legislative session. For instance, the go-ahead was given for the construction of a $32 million, 190-bed psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas. That decision was all the more important because state mental health officials say that a total of 90 beds in private facilities have been lost since 2000.

While state officials have selected a site for the psychiatric hospital, near Jones and Oakey boulevards, some of the people who live nearby don't want it. But such a development shouldn't come as a surprise to neighborhood residents. Since the 1960s the state has owned that land, which is adjacent to the Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services Center and the Desert Regional Center, a facility that offers assistance for adults with developmental disabilities. It also should be noted that the hospital will not accept violent patients nor will it take in those convicted of crimes.

Las Vegans and local governing bodies, which will have to review the state's plans for a psychiatric hospital, hopefully will come to understand the need for this important service. Further delays in building the state psychiatric hospital, which isn't expected to be completed until 2006, are unacceptable. (Even if the hospital is completed by its target date, the state will only have 8 government-funded psychiatric beds per 100,000 people -- still short of the national average.) Last week Jonna Triggs, clinic director of the state's Southern Nevada Mental Health Services, provided a glimpse of just how bad the situation currently is. On both Sept. 1 and Sept. 2 of this year, hospital emergency rooms in Clark County had a record 71 involuntary mental health patients. The average in September was 55 involuntary mental health patients a day. "It's a mess," s he told the Sun.

A program to help fill in some of these gaps for people who need immediate psychiatric care was put in place this year. A triage center, run by WestCare in Las Vegas with state and local government funding, helps Metro Police divert people to that facility so that they don't wind up at a local hospital or in jail if they've committed a petty offense. The patients aren't the only ones benefiting by receiving proper care; a day in the hospital costs $1,500 while a similar stay at WestCare costs just $250.

Some state officials have been reluctant to provide an extra $677,333 that emergency room physicians and Metro Police have sought for the program. The extra funding is needed because the program's annual $3.8 million budget is coming up short. We believe this would be a wise expenditure and should be approved by the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee, which meets later this month. Over the long term we also would like to see more funding to increase staffing levels for mental health services and more money spent on community treatment programs, which, as the Sun's Steve Kanigher reported Sunday, could result in better care for the mentally ill.

Nevada is making progress in mental health care, but the state still has a long way to go before it offers the kind of treatment and services that desperately are needed here.

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