Editorial: Mental health woes

Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

Kenny Guinn, during his eight years as governor, made real progress as he successfully pushed to increase funding for mental health programs that had suffered from previous years of neglect. But even so, much work still needs to be done.

As the Las Vegas Sun's Cy Ryan reported Tuesday, up to 2,000 mental health patients must wait as long as four months before they can see a psychiatrist in one of the state's outpatient clinics in Clark County, principally because 17 1/2 of the 29 1/2 authorized physician positions are vacant.

"This looks like we're shortchanging Southern Nevada," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, chairwoman of a Senate-Assembly subcommittee with oversight of mental health issues.

Although the current fiscal year has $102.6 million allocated for mental health services, Gibbons is proposing that this amount be cut to $96.2 million and $97.2 million, consecutively, in each of the next two years. That makes absolutely no sense, and so we are glad that Leslie has told the director of the state mental health and developmental services division to come back with a revised budget with realistic projections of what will be needed.

Southern Nevadans aren't the only ones getting slighted when it comes to mental health funding:

Efforts to recruit mental health workers to rural Nevada are failing, and they are not being helped by Gibbons' proposed budget.

The Associated Press reported last week that Gibbons' new budget excluded money that would go toward recruiting and retaining staff in mental health clinics in rural Nevada and noted that the Health and Human Services Department may have to eliminate 29 vacant positions in these clinics because of the lack of funding.

During a joint Assembly-Senate budget hearing on Thursday, Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, pushed for legislation he has sponsored that would add $3.5 million over two years for incentives for mental health workers in rural areas. Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, urged the panel to keep the vacant positions in the budget.

Rhoads' legislation would give health workers in rural Nevada a $2,400 signing bonus, a 5 percent salary increase and extra credits toward retirement.

During the hearing, Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, told Michael Willden, director of the Health and Human Services Department, to develop a plan to boost recruiting. AP reported that there was a plan that included financial incentives for workers but that it did not make it into the final budget offered by Gibbons.

Mental health issues are a serious problem in Nevada because too often the state has failed to provide adequate support for workers, clinics and hospitals. Money spent on mental health care helps ease some of society's ills, including homelessness and crime.

Over the last several years, things have been moving in the right direction. The state built a new psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas and has worked to improve services. There is, however, still a long way to go. If Gibbons isn't up to leading the way on securing a better mental health system, then it will be incumbent on the Legislature to carry forward and build on the progress made by Guinn.