Sisolak pledges help for Reno mental health workers ahead of West Hills hospital closure

Gov. Steve Sisolak says he will look to federal COVID-19 relief funds to help Reno-area mental health providers already struggling with the upcoming closure of the region’s lone acute care facility for children. 

Sisolak, speaking during a Thursday stop at Quest Counseling in Reno, said he didn’t know the particulars surrounding the decision to abruptly shutter West Hills Behavioral Health Hospital on Dec. 20. But he said his roughly hour-long conversation with Quest therapists made it clear they needed some help.

“When another place closes, it just expands the gap (in mental health services),” Sisolak told reporters after the roundtable. “We need to continue and increase the work we’re doing with local partners to see how we can make sure these facilities are getting the funding and resources they need.”

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Workers at Quest, a behavioral health care clinic in Southwest Reno, told the governor they had seen huge recent increases in adolescent and middle school patients, a trend they expect will only worsen after West Hills closes its doors. 

They said funds from federal aid packages were “hugely helpful” during previous COVID-era surges in patients, but haven’t proven enough to ease the 14-day wait time for admission to Quest’s inpatient facility.

Quest has six beds, compared to 95 at West Hills, 35 of those for children.

Sisolak said two weeks is too long for someone in crisis to wait for help, and promised to do his best to free up some of the state’s roughly $9 billion share of congressionally approved coronavirus dollars. 

“The (federal funding) isn’t as flexible as I’d like it to be,” he added. “But if it’s a matter of resources, we need to find resources that can be made available.”

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Sisolak, speaking during the fourth and final stop of a statewide “health care week” tour, noted that Nevada has chronically underfunded facilities serving patients in mental crisis.

Nevada was ranked 49th in the nation for access to mental health services in 2020, and has been rocked by years of controversy over psychiatric hospital patients who, instead of treatment, were given a one-way bus ticket to California. Still, other patients have had to survive squalid living conditions in group homes run by loosely regulated small business owners, as revealed in a 2016 investigation by the Reno Gazette Journal. 

Jolene Dalluhn, executive director at Quest, said West Hills’ upcoming closure is only likely to add to existing strains on the state’s system. She and her colleagues hope an additional influx of cash can help them absorb some of the hospital’s former clients.

“It will definitely have an impact,” Dalluhn said of West Hills’ demise. “When we have someone who is cutting themselves, who is suicidal (West Hills) is where we send them.

“I think what it’s going to come down to is community agencies like ours trying to serve more people in an outpatient setting, because the acute care is not going to be available.”

West Hills executives announced their intent to close the facility in late November, citing a number of factors including “the cost to renovate aging infrastructure,” according to KRNV Reno. 

The hospital first opened in 1981. Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve lamented its loss in a tweet that urged officials to give local mental health providers greater access to federal COVID-19 funds.

James DeHaven is the politics reporter for the Reno Gazette Journal. He covers campaigns, the Nevada Legislature and everything in between. Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here.