County’s New Mental Hospital to Still Face Overcrowding Woes

San Diego County’s Mental Health Services Department took a step into the future Thursday with the dedication of a new psychiatric hospital designed to provide pleasant surroundings for the mentally ill.

The new $9.5-million complex at 3851 Rosecrans St., with its brick facade and sunny interior, has been praised by county mental health officials as a much-needed “state-of-the art” facility.

“The layout is quite unusual . . . there are a lot more windows and light than in the old mental hospitals, which were much more prison-like,” said county Mental Health Director Dr. Areta Crowell. “It gives a feeling that these people are real people whose well-being is important, rather than relegating them to dreary, dungeon-like facilities.”

Many of the patients’ rooms look out over grassy courtyards that can be used for volleyball games, dances or other recreation. Some rooms have kitchens and laundry facilities, where patients can learn to cook and clean for themselves.

High-Tech Touches

The new hospital also boasts some high-tech touches, such as video cameras to monitor the patients, and electric doors which can be operated from control panels at the nursing stations. Electronic arm devices will be worn by all hospital personnel to alert nurses to emergencies, and medical records will be computerized.

Despite all the new technology and the fresh look, officials warn that the persistent overcrowding problems of its predecessor will remain.

At the time of the ground-breaking two years ago, county officials were hopeful that the new facility would alleviate the chronic overcrowding at the 30-year-old County Mental Health Hospital in Hillcrest. But the new hospital will contain only 62 beds for “acute” patients--just two more than CMH. “This is strictly a transfer of a an existing program to a new facility,” Crowell said.

The psychiatric facility was built on the site of the former headquarters of FedMart. County officials approved the purchase of the parcel in 1985.

The transfer of patients from the old hospital to the new San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital is scheduled for mid-July. The CMH emergency ward may be closed for one day during the transition, according to a county spokesman.

The old hospital on Dickinson Street has been leased by the county since it was bought by UC San Diego Medical Center in 1981. After the county patients leave, the building will be closed for a three-month, $2.7-million renovation, said UC San Diego Medical Center spokeswoman Pat JaCoby. It will eventually house the medical center’s in-patient psychiatric unit, JaCoby said.

The drastic shortage of beds for the severely mentally ill, Crowell said, can be directly attributed to a long-term paucity of funding from the state. County government, meanwhile, “has done everything they can,” Crowell said. “They’ve put in more money than they’re required to do by state law.”

A sorely-needed 13-bed “crisis intervention” ward in the new hospital has been constructed, but will remain unoccupied for an indefinite period because there is simply no money to staff the unit, Crowell said.

Recovered From Crisis

The mental health hospital has bounced back from its own crisis point three years ago, when it was severely criticized by state and federal officials for shortcomings ranging from sloppy care to patient deaths. During that period the hospital lost both its medical accreditation and eligibility for federal Medicare funding.

The new hospital will be fully accredited, said Crowell, and a renewed application for Medicare funding will be filed soon. Some of the old problems, however, will remain.

CMH occasionally has had to turn away mentally ill patients at the door--in violation of state law--because there is simply no room. “We are always having to choose which ones are the sickest at any given moment,” Crowell said. “We admit about 10% of the patients that come to our hospital.”

Many of the mentally ill who are picked up off the streets by police often end up being taken to other hospitals that are authorized to hold them for a 72-hour observation period.

“All of those hospitals understand that if the police bring people to them, that is part of their responsibility,” Crowell said, “but it does still back up.”

Some of the overcrowding will be alleviated, however, by the inclusion of a 34-bed “skilled nursing” ward, which was funded by the state. “It will provide a place for people who have improved from the acute stage and don’t need the intense 24-hour care, but are just not ready to go out in the world right now,” said county Mental Health Services spokesman Patrick Stalnaker. Such patients, he said, currently take up valuable bed space at CMH that may be needed by those who are more seriously ill.