A few weeks ago, a reader emailed me saying, “Thank you for your very detailed article (“Who Closed California’s Mental Health Hospitals?”) about the history of mental health problems in California. Could you please write another follow-up article about practical solutions to this problem?”
There are certainly some potential solutions to the mental health crisis in our state, and here in Mendocino County, but I would like to start by taking a brief look at the relevant history surrounding this issue over the next few weeks.
Below is an excerpt from an article I wrote in the early 2000s, when irreversible decisions were made regarding the direction and scope of mental health services in Mendocino County: This is a basic timeline tracing the beginning of major problems in Mendocino County’s mental health policy, or lack thereof.
Early January 2001 – The psychiatric ward remains closed.
Since we’re on the topic of how the government treats people, the situation in the county’s mental health facilities is just criminal. The PHF (pronounced “puff”) unit has been closed since last December. The PHF unit deals with very severely mentally ill people, some of whom are violent, suicidal and criminals. Often they are mentally ill and have been diagnosed with alcohol and drug addiction. These people need 24-hour care in a specialized facility. The county jail is not equipped or has qualified staff to care for people who are charged with crimes and are also mentally ill. Similarly, harmless but mentally ill people who wander the streets and make trouble should not belong in a jail. They need care and treatment. But when the county’s mental health department closes the only facility that provides specialized treatment, there is no good alternative.
MH Director Christy Kelly said her PHF staff are burned out and can’t handle the stress of the job. They must have made a commitment when they went into their chosen profession. If they can no longer perform their duties, they should be taken off the county payroll and find other employment. At Tuesday’s BOS meeting, Kelly said the PHF unit would not or probably would not reopen anytime soon. County Administrator Jim Anderson told county leaders it was “premature” to consider such an extreme option.
Needless to say, there are serious questions about Kelly’s performance at the helm of one of the county’s most important services. Sure, her staff may be stressed, but closing PHF is not the solution. The five bosses on the Board of Supervisors need to take decisive action. This dire situation has been left unchecked for far too long. Police have a hard enough time dealing with the run-of-the-mill, run-of-the-mill criminals and assorted vile people operating in Mendland. The mentally ill need specialist care. If there is nowhere to house them, the police have no choice but to deal. So the police have to hold them until a suitable, often out-of-county, mental facility can be found. The collapse of mental health services is a burden on law enforcement, as well as an added expense to taxpayers. It is also unfair to people who are not lawbreakers but are simply mentally ill.
Late January 2001 — When the MH Director was “fired”
A few weeks ago, I reported that the county’s top commissioners, excluding Mike Delver, had caved to the demands of Mental Health Commissioner Christy Kelly and permanently closed the county’s Mental Health Facility (PHF). I have said time and time again that the commissioners lack the political will to mandate the Mental Health Commissioner to do her job – providing acute mental health care to people, some of whom are caught up in the criminal justice system. The commissioners accepted Kelly’s claim that the $900,000 the commissioners would save by closing PHF “could be used to develop a comprehensive and effective mental health care system.”
How is the new system working?
A few days ago, a mental health “provider” locked a troubled soul in a car at DMH for three hours on a muggy day. The abandoned troubled soul kicked out the car window to relieve himself. It is long past time for Superman to fire Kelly for good.
August 2001 — Raising the White Flag
It was painful to watch, but at Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting, criminal justice officials reluctantly capitulated. We’re talking about the board’s decision to permanently close the county’s psychiatric facilities. You can’t blame the sheriff, public defender, probation department, district attorney or courts for waving the white flag. They all realized the magnitude of the situation months ago. With the exception of Mike Delver, who voted against closing the psychiatric facilities’ doors, the rest of the board didn’t have the political will to order the psychiatric facilities to do their job: providing acute psychiatric care to people caught up in the criminal justice system, many of whom have diagnoses of both substance abuse problems and mental illness.
Instead, the county will use the $900,000 it purportedly saved by closing PHF to “develop a comprehensive and effective mental health care system.” Why close the PHF unit to achieve that lofty goal? Isn’t that what the Department of Mental Health has been doing all along?
In any case, these new enhanced services do not include local critical care for people whose serious mental illnesses put them in conflict with the law, or who pose a threat to themselves, such as suicidal tendencies.As a recent letter writer noted, Mendocino County is becoming a kind of refuge for people who want to end it all, but this, like the PHF unit, is a topic best kept private.
The problem for most of these people is that Mendocino County has nowhere to care for them without PHF, so they are transferred to psychiatric hospitals outside the county, as has been the case since last year (when PHF was “temporarily” closed). As you can imagine, this situation slightly exacerbates the Sheriff’s Office’s staffing shortages to transport mentally ill inmates from the hospital to courthouses outside the county. Similarly, defense attorneys are burdened with literally going to extra effort to meet with their clients who may be in facilities in Alameda and San Mateo counties. Not to mention, the family and friends of the mentally ill face the same kinds of challenges.
But that’s the price everyone pays as the county works toward “developing a comprehensive and effective mental health care system.” Any guesses as to when that might happen?
If you think about it, closing PHF is similar to the county’s decision to close all of the county’s landfills. At the time, the county didn’t have the political will to address the landfill problem at the local level. There has to be a place in the county where a modern, compliant landfill can be located. I always say the problem with trash is that everyone wants their trash picked up, but no one wants them to dump it. Now they just haul it out of here, out of sight, out of mind. It’s someone else’s problem.
Now we do the exact same thing with people with mental illness.
Well, garbage in, garbage out.
(to be continued.)
Jim Shields is editor and publisher of the Mendocino County Observer, observer@pacific.net, a longtime district manager for the Laytonville County Water District and chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Board. His radio show, “This and That,” airs every Saturday at noon on KPFN 105.1 FM and is also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org
