Nevada Accused Of Abandoning Hundreds Of Mentally Ill Patients In Other States

In a shocking discovery that has come to light just this month, the state of Nevada's primary psychiatric hospital has been accused of gross negligence in its handling of mentally ill patients. Apparently, Nevada has been unloading its responsibilities on all the other states."Assuming the reports are true, Nevada's practice of psychiatric patient dumping is shockingly inhumane and illegal," San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said.

By 'patient dumping', Herrera is referring to Nevada's practice of sending their patients on a bus, usually headed for California, and often times giving them little to no food, medication, or financial assistance for their arrival. It is estimated that over 1500 patients of the Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas have been discharged in this manner since 2008.

"We're fine with taking people if they call and we make arrangements and make sure that everything is OK for the individual," said Jo Robinson, director of that city's Behavioral Health Services department. "But a bus ticket with no contact, no clinic receptor, anything, it's really not appropriate."

The case first broke out when 48-year-old James Flavy Coy Brown appeared in Sacramento this past February with absolutely nothing to his name and no family in the area. Once authorities began talking to him, they found out that workers at Rawson-Neal had sent him with a one-way bus ticket to Sacramento, snacks, and a three-day supply of his Schizophrenia medication.

"Irrespective of the disgusting treatment of human beings that is potentially going on in Nevada, there are costs that could be incurred," says Trent Rhorer, head of San Francisco's Human Services Agency whose budget is expected to allocate $90 million to homeless programs.

The numbers would certainly back up Rhorer's belief that California is getting dumped on by the practices of the Rawson-Neal Pyschiatric Hospital. Of the 1500 patients the hospital treated in this fashion, over one third of them were sent directly to a California location.

"Discharging severely mentally ill patients inappropriately is policy in this country," observes DJ Jaffe, executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org. "But getting rid of them altogether by busing them out of state is, I think, rare. I am shocked by these figures. It seems to be almost routine in Nevada."