Temporary funds approved for state to handle Vegas mentally ill

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 4:43 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - The first patients could be admitted Friday to a temporary state mental health facility in Las Vegas, following funding approval from the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee.

Lawmakers on Thursday approved spending $500,000 to cover some costs of making 28 beds available at the Desert Regional Center, and state Mental Health and Development Services Administrator Carlos Brandenburg got approval to shift other budget funds to cover costs.

Brandenburg said five patients could be admitted Friday, and the center could be full by Wednesday.

The move is expected to temporarily relieve overcrowding in Las Vegas hospital emergency rooms, where officials declared an emergency in July after mentally ill patients waiting for beds to open at existing mental health facilities clogged public hospital emergency rooms.

The state is scheduled to open a 150-bed mental hospital in Las Vegas in April 2006. Desert Regional Center currently houses developmentally disabled residents.

Lawmakers balked at appropriating $3.4 million to operate the temporary center through June 30. That would have left nothing in the state budget emergency fund.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said the Legislature will have to act when it convenes in February to appropriate the remaining $2.9 million.

Before approving the plan, northern Nevada legislators objected to a proposal by some southern Nevada members to send mentally ill patients from Las Vegas to an unused 40-bed wing of a state hospital in Sparks.

Sen. Bob Coffin and Assemblyman Morse Arberry, both D-Las Vegas, noted the Corrections Department regularly takes prisoners from Las Vegas to Reno.

But Raggio and others said legislators should not compare mentally ill people with prisoners.

State Human Resources Director Michael Willden said 63 mentally ill people waited in Las Vegas emergency rooms early Thursday for beds in mental health facilities. He added that in July people had to wait an average of 83 hours to find beds.

The crisis in Las Vegas was prompted by the closure of 133 beds for mental health patients in private hospitals since 2000.

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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com