(April 17, 2013) We already knew Nevada’s mental health system was one of the most threadbare in the country before last weekend’s Sacramento Bee report about the state discharging patients from the state’s primary psychiatric hospital to buses bound for other states.
“Since July 2008, Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas has transported more than 1,500 patients to other cities via Greyhound bus, sending at least one person to every state in the continental United States,” according to “Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country” by Cynthia Hubert (April 14).
The patients are shipped at a pace of more than one a day. Last year, nearly 400 were sent to 176 cities in 45 states. About a third were dispatched to California, including Sacramento, where a suicidal and confused former patient was sent in February even though he had never been to the city and knew nobody there.
Nevada also jails far more of its citizens and visitors in psychiatric crisis than any other state, according to our 2010 study, “More Mentally Ill Persons are in Jails and Prisons Than Hospitals.” An individual with mental illness was nearly 10 times more likely to land behind bars in Nevada than in a psychiatric hospital bed.
However, there is a glimmer of hope in all this darkness.
A bill sponsored by Assemblyman Lynn Stewart would remove Nevada from the short list of states that do not have laws authorizing assisted outpatient treatment (AOT). This would provide a means for qualifying patients at risk for relapse, arrest, incarceration, homelessness, violence including suicide can live safely in the community.
Treatment Advocacy Center Director of Advocacy Kristina Ragosta recently provided testimony in favor of AB 287, which would add AOT to the state’s civil commitment code.
“Nevada currently has one of the most restrictive civil commitment laws in the country. The state forces individuals to deteriorate to the point of dangerousness before help can be provided,” she told the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee.
“If Nevada were to pass a law allowing for assisted outpatient treatment and use it effectively, the state could begin to address some of the problems created by untreated mental illness.”
The bill passed out of committee and has been referred to Ways and Means. Click here to learn more about the bill and the current law in Nevada.
Authorizing AOT will not fill holes the size of Hoover Dam in Nevada’s mental health system, but it will provide a humane alternative to letting people deteriorate to dangerousness, end up in jail or discharged to a Greyhound bus.
Read Kristina Ragosta's testimony at the Nevada hearing on AB 287 here.
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