No more patient dumps?

Nevada hospitals will cease the practice of busing unsupervised psychiatric patients out of state, Nevada health officials said on April 24.

From now on, a chaperone will accompany mental-health patients discharged from state facilities, and Nevada will cover all associated transportation costs, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The announcement comes shortly after a Sac Bee investigative report revealed Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas had purchased about 1,500 Greyhound tickets for psychiatric patients since 2008, sending them to every state in the continental U.S. Roughly a third of those patients were sent to California. The findings have prompted a federal probe and criminal investigations from city attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera called Rawson-Neal’s practice “shockingly inhumane and illegal,” adding the city will seek compensation if allegations of “patient-dumping” are true.