Rawson-Neal Hospital

Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital is a mental hospital located in Las Vegas, Nevada. It opened as a 190-bed facility on August 28, 2006.^[2] The hospital is operated by the state of Nevada.

Controversy

On Monday April 22, 2013, San Francisco's City Attorney Dennis Herrera said he has opened an investigation into recent newspaper reports that a Nevada mental hospital was illegally busing hundreds of newly discharged psychiatric patients to California and other states. A Sacramento Bee investigative series documented what it described as rampant "patient dumping." A former patient from the hospital, who was a hospitalized there three times between 2012 and 2014, says this was common practice. During his stay, he saw patients discharged before recovery was reached if they would agree to go to another state. The patient says he observed this many times, and in addition to California he also saw patients who were discharged early because they were being sent to states including Maine, California, Florida and Colorado. During his time there he says all patients were encouraged to reach out to family members in other states if they wanted to speed up their discharge.

The Bee published a series of articles that revealed that the facility has, since 2008, discharged some 1,500 patients - some of them still mentally ill and indigent - with one-way Greyhound bus tickets to out-of-state destinations without adequate provisions for food, medication, housing or medical treatment. The report found that one third of those patients were sent to neighboring California, the bulk of them arriving in Los Angeles, while 36 ended up in San Francisco.^[3] Further investigation by Cynthia Hubert and Phillip Reese of the Sacramento Bee revealed that patients had been bused as far away as New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Boston.^[4] In February 2014, the Sacramento Bee journalists Cynthia Hubert and Phillip Reese received George Polk Awards for their coverage of the scandal,^[5] and were finalists for a Pulitzer Prize.^[6]

On April 29, 2013, officials identified 9 employees involved in the improper discharge of patients, 2 of which were terminated, three were disciplined, and four others were no longer with the hospital.^[7] On Jan. 9, 2014, federal officials warned Rawson-Neal and gave Nevada officials 90 days to correct federal EMTALA standards deficiencies or risk losing its CMS certification and federal funding. At an inspection conducted on March 12, 2014, the state facility was found to be largely compliant with regulations and will continue to be reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.^[8]

See also

Greyhound therapy

References

External links

• Nevada AIA Design Award Archive from the UNLV Architecture Studies Library