Assaults On Staff Rampant At State’s Psychiatric Hospitals
Thousands of assaults a year are leaving taxpayers on the hook for at least $135 million in workers’ compensation and overtime.
KQED:
At California Psychiatric Hospitals, Epidemic Of Patients’ Assaults On Staff Goes Untreated
In the years following Gross’ death, workers at Napa, Patton, Metropolitan, Coalinga and Atascadero state hospitals have suffered on average 2,795 assaults a year, costing California taxpayers over $82.7 million in workers’ compensation claims over the past two fiscal years alone, according to data obtained through state public records requests. Patients at the five hospitals committed nearly 26,000 assaults between 2011 and 2014, the latest year for which data are available, according to aggressive incident report records obtained from the Department of State Hospitals, which oversees the facilities. Staff were the victims of 11,000 — more than 42 percent — of those assaults, the records show. (Gross, 10/3)
In other hospital news —
The Washington Post:
Transgender Boy’s Mom Sues Hospital, Saying He ‘Went Into Spiral’ After Staff Called Him A Girl
Just shy of his 15th birthday and the promise of testosterone treatments to help make him a man, Kyler Prescott was dead. Overcome with anxiety and depression, the Southern California teen committed suicide in May 2015, his mother said. In the weeks before his death, Kyler had been treated for “suicidal ideation,” Katharine Prescott said: She had taken him to the emergency room at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, which has a Gender Management Clinic to treat children with gender dysphoria and other related issues. (Bever, 10/3)