Las Vegas-based Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital, Nevada's only state-run psychiatric hospital for adults, has lost 15 psychiatrists, 40 nurses and 74 mental health technicians over the last decade with none of these positions replaced, according to Las Vegas Review Journal.
The hospital's overall workforce dropped 44 percent in 10 years, according to data obtained by the Las Vegas Review Journal through an open records request. In 2007 the hospital had 21 doctors, 114 nurses and 160 mental health technicians. These numbers have since shrunk to six physicians, 74 nurses and 86 mental health technicians, with the patient count dropping 30 percent over the same time period.
"I’m extremely concerned,” said Robin Reedy, executive director of Nevada'’s National Alliance on Mental Illness, told Las Vegas Review Journal. "You cut down the doctors to a third and the patients have only gone down 25 percent. And I would suspect the patients that are left are the harder cases that need more intense services.”
The staffing decrease is linked to Nevada’s Medicaid expansion , which allowed mentally ill patients to seek treatment at private clinics and hospitals, Jo Malay, RN, administrator of Rawson-Neal, told the Las Vegas Review Journal. More than 200 new beds opened up for behavioral health patients in Southern Nevada after the expansion.
"With those beds opening up, the need for our beds decreased so we could really focus on the clients that fall within our safety net — those who are uninsured or out of medical bed days," Ms. Malay told Las Vegas Review Journal. "I think we're doing very well. The quality of the care is what we look at, and that remains high."
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