Officials in the State of Nevada have approved a $400,000 payout to the City of San Francisco as part of a lawsuit settlement stemming from so-called “patient dumping” allegations.
San Francisco filed suit against the state in 2013, claiming psychiatric patients had been illegally discharged into San Francisco and other California cities with no proper arrangements for caretaking. The lawsuit followed a scathing Sacramento Bee report which found that nearly 1,500 patients from Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas had been bussed into neighboring states between July 2008 and March 2013, including 500 to California.
In addition to the monetary compensation, the settlement stipulates that both parties will notify each other if a psychiatric patient plans to travel from one jurisdiction to another. The terms were approved by the Nevada Board of Examiners on Tuesday, but must still be approved by a court and the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco.
Read more about the settlement here.
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