you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!
Our tax dollars at work, CA peeps.
Costly hospital sits nearly empty
For a state penal system all but overwhelmed by overcrowding and poor facilities, the heavily secured Coalinga State Hospital for the mentally ill would seem a rare example of something going right. Built at a cost of nearly $400 million, it opened a year ago with its brilliantly hued hallways and well outfitted gym just waiting to fill up with patients.
It is still waiting.
The hospital's planners seem to have thought of everything except how they would attract qualified staff to this small, quiet agricultural community smack in the middle of the Central Valley, about 70 miles southwest of Fresno and hours from any major urban area. Because the state has been unable to hire the hundreds of psychiatrists, therapists, nurses and technicians this gem of a hospital requires, there are fewer than 400 patients here, leaving about 1,100 desperately needed beds sitting empty.
"Small, quiet agicultural community" is being generous. Try "California's sweaty chode". If you've ever driven back and forth from LA to SanFran, Coalinga is the acres of cows that you smell long before you see them. And that's about it. Cows, flat, dust, more cows, trailers, a prison, cow stench, and cows. Fresno is the closest thing resembling a city, and it's an hour-and-a-half away.
State Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden (San Joaquin County), described the largely empty hospital as a perfect example of the piecemeal planning that the corrections department and the Department of Mental Health follow. He complained that because there was no overall effort to understand the needs in the penal system and the best way of satisfying them, the hospital here was simply built in the wrong place.
In fact, the hospital is immediately adjacent to the Pleasant Valley State Prison, which is jammed to twice its design capacity. Pleasant Valley also has had so much trouble hiring medical personnel for its clinics that it is suffering a 90 percent vacancy rate for primary care providers, such as doctors and nurses, according to a court-appointed receiver running the prison health care system.
So lemme get this straight.. you're having trouble keeping the prison staffed with doctors, so you go and build an entire hospital next door??? Great idea!
Mayberg said one of the unforeseen problems at Coalinga State Hospital is that the vast majority of the sexually violent predators have refused treatment. They have all completed prison sentences for rape and other sexual crimes, but have been committed to the hospital in a civil proceeding because a court has determined they are still a danger... Because it is a civil commitment, the sexually violent predators can choose whether or not to undergo an intensive phased treatment program, but roughly 70 percent have opted not to.
Oh, and Doc? You'll be working with the worst of the worst sexual offenders, who don't really want treatment. Wait! Where are you going?
It gets better.
In response to the hiring problems, the state is likely to be forced to increase salaries, perhaps sharply. Robert Sillen, who was appointed earlier this year by a federal judge as receiver for the prison health care system, just announced that he is raising salaries as much as 30 percent to fill vacancies in prison clinics, and that is likely to force the Department of Mental Health to follow suit just to stay even.
Our tax dollars at work.
In an interview, Sillen said he might have to do more than increase salaries. He said many professionals simply do not want to leave urban areas and move to small, remote towns. As a result, he is contemplating having the state pay to create air shuttles for some health professionals, allowing them to live in Los Angeles or the Bay Area and fly to their jobs in places like Coalinga.
So. You'll be living in the middle of absolutely nowhere in a cloud of cow-stench, working for a severely dysfunctional penal system, with the worst sexual offenders in California, who are being held there for refusing treatment-- you'd be crazy to take the job. AAAAARRRRGH!!!
Costly hospital sits nearly empty
For a state penal system all but overwhelmed by overcrowding and poor facilities, the heavily secured Coalinga State Hospital for the mentally ill would seem a rare example of something going right. Built at a cost of nearly $400 million, it opened a year ago with its brilliantly hued hallways and well outfitted gym just waiting to fill up with patients.
It is still waiting.
The hospital's planners seem to have thought of everything except how they would attract qualified staff to this small, quiet agricultural community smack in the middle of the Central Valley, about 70 miles southwest of Fresno and hours from any major urban area. Because the state has been unable to hire the hundreds of psychiatrists, therapists, nurses and technicians this gem of a hospital requires, there are fewer than 400 patients here, leaving about 1,100 desperately needed beds sitting empty.
"Small, quiet agicultural community" is being generous. Try "California's sweaty chode". If you've ever driven back and forth from LA to SanFran, Coalinga is the acres of cows that you smell long before you see them. And that's about it. Cows, flat, dust, more cows, trailers, a prison, cow stench, and cows. Fresno is the closest thing resembling a city, and it's an hour-and-a-half away.
State Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden (San Joaquin County), described the largely empty hospital as a perfect example of the piecemeal planning that the corrections department and the Department of Mental Health follow. He complained that because there was no overall effort to understand the needs in the penal system and the best way of satisfying them, the hospital here was simply built in the wrong place.
In fact, the hospital is immediately adjacent to the Pleasant Valley State Prison, which is jammed to twice its design capacity. Pleasant Valley also has had so much trouble hiring medical personnel for its clinics that it is suffering a 90 percent vacancy rate for primary care providers, such as doctors and nurses, according to a court-appointed receiver running the prison health care system.
So lemme get this straight.. you're having trouble keeping the prison staffed with doctors, so you go and build an entire hospital next door??? Great idea!
Mayberg said one of the unforeseen problems at Coalinga State Hospital is that the vast majority of the sexually violent predators have refused treatment. They have all completed prison sentences for rape and other sexual crimes, but have been committed to the hospital in a civil proceeding because a court has determined they are still a danger... Because it is a civil commitment, the sexually violent predators can choose whether or not to undergo an intensive phased treatment program, but roughly 70 percent have opted not to.
Oh, and Doc? You'll be working with the worst of the worst sexual offenders, who don't really want treatment. Wait! Where are you going?
It gets better.
In response to the hiring problems, the state is likely to be forced to increase salaries, perhaps sharply. Robert Sillen, who was appointed earlier this year by a federal judge as receiver for the prison health care system, just announced that he is raising salaries as much as 30 percent to fill vacancies in prison clinics, and that is likely to force the Department of Mental Health to follow suit just to stay even.
Our tax dollars at work.
In an interview, Sillen said he might have to do more than increase salaries. He said many professionals simply do not want to leave urban areas and move to small, remote towns. As a result, he is contemplating having the state pay to create air shuttles for some health professionals, allowing them to live in Los Angeles or the Bay Area and fly to their jobs in places like Coalinga.
So. You'll be living in the middle of absolutely nowhere in a cloud of cow-stench, working for a severely dysfunctional penal system, with the worst sexual offenders in California, who are being held there for refusing treatment-- you'd be crazy to take the job. AAAAARRRRGH!!!