Editorial: Opposition to hospital unfounded

Friday, Jan. 2, 2004 | 5:28 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

January 3 - 4, 2004

For the past 40 years the state of Nevada has owned land at Jones and Oakey boulevards in western Las Vegas. Already established on the land are the Desert Regional Center, a facility for developmentally disabled people, and the Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Center. Now the state wants to move on to its next phase at the site. The plan is to convert the 103-bed mental health center into a building for other patients, including those with Alzheimer's disease, and build a new, 190-bed, $32 million psychiatric hospital. Some residents of the surrounding neighborhoods, however, are fighting the state's plan.

We respect residents who stand up and fight for their neighborhoods when something comes along that threatens their quality of life. In this case, however, we side with the state. Its plan would not depreciate the neighborhoods, where state-run services, including the Charleston campus of the Community College of Southern Nevada, have operated for years. Additionally, the expansion would serve the greater Las Vegas community, which needs increased services, particularly mental health services.

The most outspoken of the residents opposing the state plan are playing on a common misperception -- that of mentally ill people being dangerous. They list the number of schools in the area, with their point being that student safety would be jeopardized. In reality, dangerously mentally ill people are treated at a facility in Northern Nevada. The types of patients treated at the new hospital will be the same as have always been treated at the current mental health center. There have been no incidents to warrant fear based on misguided stereotypes.

What has been documented, however, is a severe lack of beds for mental health patients in Southern Nevada. The national average is 33 beds for every 100,000 residents. Here, it's 4.5 beds per 100,000, a fact that puts a great deal of strain on the emergency rooms at University Medical Center and other hospitals. Every day, 30 to 70 emergency-room beds in the Las Vegas area are occupied by mental health patients. This is one-fourth of the capacity at emergency rooms, meaning that people who are in car accidents or who have other emergency conditions are not always receiving the best care.

The Las Vegas Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the state plan in February and the Las Vegas City Council is scheduled to vote on it in March. We hope the members of those boards side with the very real needs of the community over the largely unrealistic concerns of the plan's critics.