LOOKING IN ON: CARSON CITY

Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

CARSON CITY - The hammer has already fallen and budget cuts have started.

The city of Reno, the state and the Nevada Hospital Association had planned to open a triage center in Reno in mid-December to care for those with substance abuse and mental problems.

But Carlos Brandenburg, director of the state Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Division, said the state will withhold its $500,000 to finance operations.

It doesn't make sense, Brandenburg said, to start a new program in December and possibly cut it in January when Gov. Jim Gibbons makes his decisions on budget reductions.

He said the center in Reno can delay its opening for two months. Under the original plan, the state agreed to allocate $500,000 this year and $500,000 next fiscal year to the center.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said it was "unconscionable" to cut money for a project that had been five years in the planning and was scheduled to open this month.

Triage centers treat patients in a 72-hour stay, then refer them to the local state mental hospital or another program.

"This is going to hurt people," said Leslie, chairwoman of the Legislative Committee on Health Care. "And it won't save any money."

People who otherwise might be treated at triage centers will show up instead, she said, in hospital emergency rooms or jails.

"This is heartbreaking and unnecessary," she said. "This is arbitrary and morally and fiscally the wrong thing to do."

A Las Vegas doctor who treated patients while under the influence of drugs and another who left a needle in the body of a patient during surgery are going to be punished.

Investigators for the state Board of Medical Examiners, acting on a complaint, asked Dr. Sidney Thomas Van Assche of Las Vegas to submit a urine sample in August. He refused, but submitted to a hair test that came back positive for amphetamines and methamphetamines. He treated patients two days after testing positive, prompting board staffers to accuse him of malpractice.

Under the settlement, the board placed Van Assche on five years' probation, issued a public reprimand, ordered him to undergo drug treatment for at least five years and directed that he pay $4,018 for the investigation.

The board also agreed to a settlement with Dr. Jozsef Zority of Las Vegas under which he was publicly reprimanded, fined $5,000 and ordered to complete 10 hours in medical record keeping.

During Zority's surgery on a 70-year-old female patient, a needle broke and lodged in her body. He said he verbally informed the patient but kept no record. The patient contends the needle was discovered when she underwent surgery performed by another doctor.