SF to Sue Nevada Over Dumping of Mental Patients

Accused of busing 500 patients to the state and leaving them

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera told Nevada state officials Tuesday that he would soon file a class action lawsuit on behalf of California's cities and counties to recoup costs related to the discharge and busing of roughly 500 patients to California during the last five years.

Herrera said San Francisco alone spent at least $500,000 on medical care, housing and grants for patients bused from Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas.

"Rawson-Neal staff were well aware that the 24 patients bused to San Francisco since April 2008 were all indigent and homeless, suffering from mental illnesses requiring ongoing medical care and medication, and in most cases were non-residents of San Francisco with no family members here to care for them," Herrera wrote in a letter to Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.