Tue, Apr 1, 2008 (2:08 a.m.)

The health care crisis brought on by the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada has focused attention on the underfunded state agency responsible for inspecting medical facilities.

This agency — the Licensure and Certification Bureau — will likely be front and center when state lawmakers begin responding to the crisis with proposed reforms.

We hope the first proposal will be to properly fund the bureau.

Although Gov. Jim Gibbons announced Monday that projected tax revenues are falling short by about $900 million, this should not affect any funding decision about the bureau — it is funded by fees assessed to the facilities that are inspected.

Gibbons vaulted into the governor’s office with the unrealistic promise of never raising taxes or fees. But with a health care crisis affecting the whole state, fees that would allow timely inspections of clinics should be raised.

The crisis began in February with the announcement that a hepatitis C outbreak had its origin at the Endoscopy Center, where medical staff had for years been routinely reusing syringes and injecting patients with possibly contaminated anesthesia.

Letters went out to 40,000 former patients of the center advising them to have their blood tested. Emergency inspections of all 50 state ambulatory surgical centers were ordered and major deficiencies have been found at six of them.

Reporter David McGrath Schwartz, in a story in Saturday’s Las Vegas Sun, documented how the bureau has not met inspection schedules. McGrath wrote that the agency has 48 positions and 10 of them are vacant, largely because its pay scale for skilled inspectors is not competitive.

He also noted that the small staff is responsible for overseeing 2,214 licensees, including nursing homes, medical labs, halfway houses and homes for mentally challenged people. Additionally, the bureau responds to about 1,000 complaints a year. Each of its responsibilities requires painstaking work — not just quick walk-throughs.

More health care crises can be expected if this agency is not funded properly. It obviously needs a staff sizable enough to meet its numerous responsibilities.