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In what appears to have been an egregious case of interstate patient dumping, a 48-year-old severely disturbed schizophrenic says he was released from a state mental institution in Las Vegas more than two weeks ago, put on a Greyhound bus to Sacramento and told to call 911 when he got here.
Confused and dazed, James Flavy Coy Brown was taken by police to Loaves & Fishes, a social services facility north of downtown Sacramento that provides assistance to homeless people. When he arrived, Brown had exhausted his supply of several powerful anti-psychotic medications to control severe depression, seizures, panic disorder and schizophrenia.
Appalled by the story they heard, Loaves & Fishes got Brown's permission to share it with The Sacramento Bee. It seems the group home where Brown had lived in Las Vegas for several years recently closed. Brown said he and four other mentally ill residents were all put on buses bound for different cities in California.
An outraged Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg says he is considering asking the U.S. attorney to investigate what he sees as a clear violation of the mentally ill patients' civil rights, apparently by Nevada mental health authorities. An investigation is clearly warranted.
Whoever is responsible for putting Brown on a bus to Sacramento with a three-day supply of meds and instructions to call 911 when he arrived needs to be held accountable. But the problem goes beyond patient dumping. At the behest of the California Hospital Association, Steinberg has introduced a bill to create a triage system for mentally ill and helpless people.
