Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
A California state lawmaker is calling for a federal investigation into the alleged "dumping" of a Nevada mental patient last month in Sacramento.
Hospital and health officials in Nevada, meanwhile, vowed to look into the circumstances surrounding the patient's release and issue a public report about what happened.
"We don't take this lightly at all," said Dr. Tracey Green, Nevada's state health officer.
The patient, James Flavy Coy Brown, 48, disappeared onto Sacramento's streets last month, a day after he arrived by Greyhound bus from Las Vegas, according to staffers at the Loaves & Fishes homeless services complex near downtown Sacramento. According to staffers who spoke to him, he said he had no family in Sacramento and had never visited the capital city.
Brown was frightened and confused when he arrived at the Loaves & Fishes complex on Feb. 13, staffer Molly Simones said. He carried his discharge papers from the Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services psychiatric hospital and a schedule detailing his 15-hour bus ride from Las Vegas.
The medical discharge papers, obtained by The Bee, ordered that Brown be taken "to the Greyhound bus station by taxi with 3 day supply of medication," including one drug to treat schizophrenia and another for depression.
Brown told Loaves staffers that he and four other patients were sent to the Las Vegas mental hospital a few weeks ago, after their group home shut down. Simones said Brown told her that, upon discharge from the hospital, he was given a bus ticket to Sacramento and told to call 911 when he arrived. Instead, he went to a local police station. She said he told her his four former housemates were shipped to other California cities.
After Sacramento police took Brown to Loaves, Simones gave him bus fare to UC Davis Medical Center. It is unclear whether Brown made it to the facility or to the Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center across the street. "I just hope he's OK," Simones said.
California state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, said he believes Nevada engaged in "patient dumping" by sending a mentally ill man to California without showing that he had relatives here or a place to get care.
Read more here: Federal probe sought of alleged 'dumping' of mental patient in Sacramento - Bee Local News - The Sacramento Bee
The allegations of patient-dumping were brought to light by the Sacramento Bee. The paper reported that at least 36 of 1,500 patients discharged by Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas over the last five years had been sent to San Francisco on Greyhound buses. In a letter to Nevada Health and Human Services Director Mike Willden, San Francisco City Atty. Dennis Hererra sought documentation on the practice. He also called on local homeless service providers to assist in an investigation, asking them to collect information from any clients bused to the city from Nevada and to refer them to legal counsel. "Assuming the reports are true, Nevada's practice of psychiatric 'patient dumping' is shockingly inhumane and illegal," Herrera said in a statement. "We're prepared to litigate aggressively on behalf of San Francisco and its taxpayers to recover whatever costs or damages we're able to identify.
Herrera added that he plans to seek an injunction blocking the practice. The Sacramento Bee first reported last month on a 48-year-old patient who said he had been discharged by cab to the Greyhound station with a one-way ticket to Sacramento, snacks and a three-day supply of medication to treat his schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. The man alleged he was instructed by Rawson-Neal staff to call 911 when he arrived. He had never been to Sacramento, the paper said, had no friends or family members in the area and arrived to find that no arrangements had been made for his care, housing or medical treatment.
According to subsequent stories in the Bee, one-third of the 1,500 patients had been bused to California. Willden released a statement Monday saying Rawson-Neal has maintained its high quality of certification and accreditation. Nevada DHHS is reviewing the approximate 1,500 discharges that included out of state transportation over the past five years, he added, saying the practice "appears not to be systemic, with the failure occurring at the clinical level. The hospital ... has taken immediate action to put into place both a 100% review and approval of all [proposed] out of state discharges and to additionally review in-state discharges to ensure the quality of discharge planning and after care plans.
Los Angeles officials are also probing the issue. The Bee reported that more than 200 of the Nevada psychiatric patients given bus tickets were sent to Los Angeles County. L.A. County Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Kathleen Piche said none has been identified to date, but we have no way of knowing unless a complaint is made. The countys policy allows for the return of mentally ill clients to their cities of origin or reuniting them with family but only if they are accompanied by an escort, she added. L.A. city attorney's spokesman Sandy Cooney said his office was gathering information and ... trying to determine whether what we gather warrants an investigation.
San Francisco probes alleged psychiatric-patient dumping - latimes.com
