‘Scrounged’ mental ward might relieve ER overcrowding

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 9:40 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Carlos Brandenburg says he has been able to "scrounge" beds, tables and other furniture to set up a mental health ward in Las Vegas to relieve hospital emergency rooms of overcrowding.

Brandenburg, director of the state Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services, was to ask the state Board of Examiners today for support of a $2 million emergency appropriation to start the care center. The board is made up of Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Brian Sandoval and Secretary of State Dean Heller.

Brandenburg wants to begin treating the patients early in August when emergency construction work, costing $203,000, is completed on a building on the campus of the Southern Nevada Mental Health System in Las Vegas to bring the facility up to code.

The recommendation of the Board of Examiners on the $2 million will go forward to the Legislative Interim Finance Committee that does not have a scheduled meeting until Sept. 15.

But Mike Willden, director of the state Department of Human Resources, said he's hopeful a special meeting can be scheduled of the Finance Committee so staff can be hired and care can begin as soon as possible.

With emergency rooms filling up with people with mental problems, Clark County declared a state of emergency, fearing that hospitals would lose their ability to handle a surge of patients with nonmental emergencies.

WestCare, a nonprofit center, has been taking the overflow from the hospitals. It has received an emergency allocation of $200,000 from the state. Last week, there were 33 mental patients in WestCare, but that dwindled to 11 as of Tuesday, Willden said.

He said state teams have been going into WestCare to see how patients could be treated in other programs in the community, rather than being in a care unit. Willden said he hopes to have all of the mental health patients out of WestCare by Aug. 4 when construction is completed at the state's proposed center, which up until now has been a meeting and training room.

He said the state has authorized up to $286,000 to be spent on WestCare.

Willden said the new facility won't be a hospital but will be classified as a group home. But there will be doctors, nurses and mental health technicians on the job. And he detailed how the beds will be used.

Those people with mental problems in the emergency rooms will go to a 26-bed state observation unit where the individual is analyzed to determine if he or she needs additional care or can be released with proper medication.

Those presently in the 77-bed state mental hospital, whose average stay is 18 days, will be funneled into the new care unit as they progress in their treatment. And those who are in emergency rooms now and who need additional treatment will go into the present mental health hospital.

The $2 million emergency appropriation would finance the cost of the new unit from Aug. 1 until February next year when the Legislature is in session. Brandenburg said the money will be used to hire staff and also for overtime since the full complement of workers will not be immediately on the job.

In addition, the money will be used for such things as drugs, communications equipments and other items over a period of six and a half months. Then the division will ask the Legislature for $1.3 million to operate the temporary center through June 30, a period of four and one-half months.