Lawyer: State lagging in mental health transports

Nevada is falling short on meeting goals set by a federal lawsuit settlement to provide prompt treatment to mentally ill offenders to help restore their competency, a defense lawyer said.

Lake’s Crossing, the state’s only maximum-security mental health facility, was supposed to provide treatment to inmates within 21 days of being ordered by a judge to the facility, according to the settlement filed in January.

However, as of Friday, the average wait time for an inmate to be transported to the Sparks facility was 52 days, Clark County Deputy Public Defender Christy Craig said.

This past spring, the state was close to meeting the 21-day requirement, but the number of days began to increase over the past six weeks, Craig said.

“I’m disappointed because we were making some headway in the spring … and now (the numbers) are creeping up again,” said Craig, who was the lead attorney in the lawsuit. “I’m concerned about it.”

The facility is the state’s only center for evaluating and helping restore the competency of offenders referred by the courts.

In June 2013, the county public defender’s office filed a lawsuit against the state-run facility in federal court over the backlog of court-ordered offenders waiting to be transported to the Northern Nevada facility. The settlement agreement was reach Jan. 28.

Richard Whitley, administrator for the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, did not return calls seeking comment.

Under a settlement agreement reached in 2008 for a previous lawsuit over the same issue, Lake’s Crossing was supposed to admit detainees within seven days of a court order. It complied for the first few years, but in 2012 the number of court-ordered patients began to increase.

Patients had to wait weeks and even months to be admitted into the hospital last year.

On Friday, there were 36 people on the wait list who probably won’t be transported to Lake’s Crossing until late October or early November, Craig said.

And the list will grow in the coming days, she said.

Craig said the delays could be attributed to the infrequency of the flights that only transport six to eight offenders twice a month.

State officials have complied with the requirements of the settlement “to the best of their ability during this reporting period,” according to a copy of the first six-month report the state filed as part of the agreement. The report shows that on several occasions offenders were admitted into the facility within 15 days during the spring.

Under the settlement, by next January, the state has to provide treatment to offenders within 14 days of a court order. By September 2015, the state has to provide treatment within seven days of a court order.

The state is hoping to meet the requirements by opening up beds at other psychiatric facilities, according to the report which was filed by the state attorney general’s office. State officials earlier this year expanded the number of beds available at Lake’s Crossing from 66 to 76. More staff members were also hired.

A long-term plan that is expected to help the situation is the remodeling of the Stein Hospital, an old psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas, which should be completed in September 2015.

“It seems like it’s moving along as anticipated,” Craig said. “But then there’s still the other issue — staffing. Are they going to have the staff to open?”

Contact Yesenia Amaro at yamaro@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440. Find her on Twitter: @YeseniaAmaro.