Mental health crisis units proposed

Friday, April 1, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- To further alleviate the mental health crisis in Clark County, the state is looking at the possibility of contracting with a private company to supply a 50-bed crisis unit to try to keep mental health patients from filling the emergency wards at hospitals.

Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the state Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services, told a legislative budget committee Thursday that a request for proposals would be advertised today to see who might be interested and what will be the projected cost.

This crisis center plan, he said, is not in the governor's budget but was requested by legislators to relieve the overcrowding of mental patients in the emergency rooms of hospitals in Clark County.

As of Wednesday night, there were 37 patients in emergency wards who were waiting for state mental health beds to open. The average wait was 56 hours, Brandenburg said.

Patients in the emergency room must be cleared medically first before they are taken by the state. The medical clearance, Brandenburg said, takes one to two hours.

Brandenburg told reporters that a crisis unit would be able to medically clear the patients with the 50 beds available if they need mental health care. Once a bed opened up at a state facility, the individual would be transferred from the crisis unit.

The "request for proposals" from the private companies are due back in mid-May.

Gov. Kenny Guinn's budget recommends a budget for the division next year of $236.1 million, an 18.3 percent increase from this fiscal year and $276.2 million in 2007, up 16.9 percent.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, chairwoman of the budget committee, said that this would allow service to 9,415 more Nevadans with mental problems. She said it would address about 85 percent of the need.

The division is presently serving about 27,000 people statewide. Brandenburg estimated that another 27,000 people are "underserved." The budget, he said "will go a long way to providing services."

The new 150-bed mental hospital in Las Vegas is scheduled to open in May 2006 and the added 40-bed wing will be ready in December next year, he told the committee.

To take care of the increase in patients, Brandenburg said he must hire 99 new psychiatric nurses and 28 psychiatrists in Clark County. "That will be a challenge," he said.

Pay for the psychiatric nurses in the state is 23-43 percent under the market place. The governor is recommending a ten percent increase in pay.

Brandenburg said he loses nurses to other facilities in Southern Nevada that give them bonuses of $7,000 plus an increase in pay.

Besides getting psychiatric nurses from the colleges, he said he will have to recruit out-of-state.