A series of recent press exposés showed California’s for-profit mental health hospitals have way lower staffing than their nonprofit counterparts, so now Governor Newsom is pushing an emergency order forcing the for-profits to beef up their staffs.
After Bay Point 15-year-old Jázmin Pellegrini was found dead in an SF driveway about a year ago, having somehow acquired and overdosed on fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine, the Chronicle did some digging into how she ended up there. It turns out Pellegrini had been shuffled through 40 hospitalizations at ten different for-profit mental hospitals over a two-year period, and the Chron found these for-profit hospitals were hotbeds of sexual harassment and violent behavior, with very low staffing levels. And the Chronicle’s investigation found that “serious patient safety incidents were far more likely to occur in for-profits than in nonprofit psychiatric hospitals.”
The Gavin Newsom administration realized they had a problem on their hands, considering that the state is shoveling so much money into these for-profit facilities. “The Chronicle’s investigation raises serious concern about the quality of care received by these individuals,” a Newsom spokesperson told the Chronicle in February. “We take each incident seriously and will be reviewing the care standards for psychiatric hospitals.”
Well, consider those care standards reviewed. Today the Chronicle reports the Newsom administration is suddenly demanding more staffing at for-profit mental health facilities, though it’s unclear if they will implement the same “one nurse for every six patients” rule that nonprofit hospitals have.
“We are ensuring better behavioral health care for all Californians by modernizing our behavioral health system to provide services to help anybody, anywhere, at any time,” California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS) Secretary Kim Johnson said in a statement to the Chronicle. “As part of this broader commitment, the California Department of Public Health plans to issue emergency regulations aimed at increasing transparency and accountability within acute psychiatric hospitals.”
Ahem… “plans to issue.” Meaning they have not done so yet, and we do not know what these new guidelines will be.
But aside from the human tragedies like young Jázmin Pellegrini’s, the conditions at these facilities could prove a political headache for Newsom. He’s throwing around $6 billion in bond money to treat mental health and drug addiction patients, and per the Chron, much of that is going to these for-profit hospitals. So it makes sense there should be more strings attached to those dollars.
“It’s a good start,” California Nurses Association president Sandy Reding told the Chronicle. “But they need to include the input of frontline nurses and ensure that when they are setting standards, they are setting minimum nurse-to-patient ratios with acuity, meaning how sick the patients are.”
Passing laws in California generally takes a long time. But in this case, Newsom is using an “emergency rulemaking process” where he can ram temporary new laws into place for a year, while lawmakers use that time to create a permanent law. So that may be a good strategy to improve conditions in for-profit hospitals in the short term.
But in terms of what, exactly, these new regulations will require of for-profit hospitals, we still don’t know.
Image: Lorraine K via Yelp
