Health officials losing patience

Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2005 | 7:49 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A plan to ease the strain on Clark County emergency rooms overwhelmed with mental health patients with no place else to go has been stopped by a "bureaucratic snafu."

Las Vegas officials have called a temporary halt to the state's plan to put up to 50 mental health patients at an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center. The city says the facility isn't properly zoned for the new mission.

Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell said the new use for the WestCare center at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Alta Drive "falls into a gap in our (zoning) code."

She said the city is working on writing a change to the zoning ordinance that would permit a special-use permit for WestCare, but that could take six to eight weeks.

Clark County Manager Thom Reilly, who declared an emergency in July 2004 because of the situation, said this setback is "definitely frustrating."

Mentally ill patients who end up in emergency rooms stay there after they've been declared physically healthy until a space at a mental hospital opens up. That has created a space crunch in area emergency rooms and long waits for other people trying to use them.

State officials said Tuesday an average of 87 patients per day have been waiting in emergency rooms and the average wait to be transferred is 154 hours -- a little more than six days.

Reilly declared an emergency in 2004 when there were about 100 mentally ill patients waiting in emergency rooms.

Reilly said there were 109 mental health patients in area emergency rooms as of Friday. As of Tuesday, there were 95, said Dan Musgrove, director of intergovernment relations for Clark County.

"There's still an emergency," Musgrove said.

WestCare is a stopgap measure until 190 beds for mental health patients are ready next year. The state Board of Examiners approved a $7 million contract for WestCare on Aug. 24.

At the time, Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the state Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services, said patients would start being transferred there by the second week in September.

But the facility had to be licensed by the state Bureau of Licensing and Certification. That license wasn't issued until Friday.

WestCare President Richard Steinberg said the facility had received all of its approvals, including having state and city fire officials sign off, when "at the last minute a staff member from the Las Vegas Planning Department said it should be rezoned."

Steinberg called it a "bureaucratic snafu." The facility has operated for 22 years with a city business license and last year handled mental health patients temporarily to ease the crisis without getting a zoning change.

Musgrove said WestCare has "bent over backwards" to get ready to open to accept the patients.

Steinberg, who said he hoped the issue could be resolved in a day or two, said he thought the city might be able to declare an emergency to get the matter cleared up.

But asked if this could be sped up, Fretwell said the change in the zoning ordinance would have to go through the public hearing process, which normally lasts about two months.

The state is building a 150-bed mental hospital at Oakey and Jones boulevards to be completed next April. A 40-bed addition is also being built and should be finished in August 2006.

As an additional measure to ease overcrowding in emergency rooms, the state Board of Examiners on Tuesday also approved a $1.8 million contract with WestCare to take care of people with drug and alcohol problems who are sitting in hospital emergency rooms.

Brandenburg said these people are not considered a danger to society or to themselves but need to be transferred out of the emergency rooms to a place where they can receive care.

Cy Ryan can be reached at (775) 687-5032 or cy@lasvegassun.com.