Plan B Forum

By Lee Romney and John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

April 15, 2012

When Garth Webb was sent to Napa State Hospital, his parents were relieved.

The bellboy and amateur composer from Sebastopol had been in the throes of bipolar disorder when he was charged with threatening the lives of co-workers. His family encouraged him to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, thinking that in a mental hospital he would get the treatment he needed.

Instead, Webb and his parents say, he was repeatedly brutalized. His main tormentor, a patient in the room next door, assaulted him several times, wrapping him in a headlock and sexually abusing him.

Task force seeks to change state's mental health commitment lawSoon after, the same man strangled a psychiatric worker on the hospital grounds.

"Since I've been here, that's what I've witnessed ... these random acts of violence," Webb, now 31, said in an interview from the hospital. "It was a rude awakening."

Webb's ordeal offers a window on the failings of a six-year effort to improve conditions in California's public mental hospitals at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state, alleging that it was violating patients' rights by heavily drugging and improperly restraining them and failing to provide appropriate treatment. The state settled, agreeing to an extensive court-supervised improvement plan at four hospitals with more than 4,000 patients.

But a Times investigation found that the plan has failed to achieve the Justice Department's main objective: to raise the level of care so patients could control their violent tendencies and would not be institutionalized any longer than necessary.

Under the plan, the use of restraints and certain medications declined. But by the end of last year, the rate of patient assaults on other patients and staff members had doubled at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk and Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo County, according to an analysis of state data.

The assault rate at Napa more than tripled over two years, dropping only after the killing of the psychiatric worker triggered a lockdown.

Only at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino did assaults decrease — by 15%.

Patients, most of whom have committed crimes linked to their illnesses, are also being confined longer, records show. Those judged not guilty by reason of insanity, for instance, were held nine months longer on average in 2011 than in 2006.

Despite the rising violence and longer periods of confinement, the Justice Department expressed overall satisfaction with the pace of improvements in the hospitals, and in November it allowed its oversight of Patton and Atascadero to expire.




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Under the plan, the use of restraints and certain medications declined. But by the end of last year, the rate of patient assaults on other patients and staff members had doubled

A new state-of-the-art mental health unit has been officially opened at the Canberra Hospital.

The new 40-bed unit replaces the existing 30-bed psychiatric services unit at the hospital.

It includes a high dependency wing, living and dining space, a therapies wing and treatment and support area.

The unit's executive director Katrina Bracher says it is safer, and more spacious and open than the old unit.

"There's a gym, there's a games room, there's an arts room," she said.

"We've got 40 single rooms all with their own ensuites. We've got landscaped courtyards, there's a TV nook, a spiritual room - the list goes on."

The facility will accept its first patients on April 2.

Initially 32 beds will be filled, with the remaining beds to be filled as demand increases.

The Adult Mental Health Unit has been designed so it can eventually expand to accommodate 50 beds.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher says it is the best mental health unit in Australia.

"[It's] a holistic model of care for mental health patients which is setting a new benchmark for care, leading the nation in every way," she said.