Simi Valley Hospital to Close Mental Health Unit, Reassign Most Workers

Administrators of Simi Valley Hospital notified employees Friday that the facility’s mental health unit would close within 60 days.

Behavioral Health Services “was projected to lose approximately a quarter of a million dollars by year’s end,” hospital President Margaret R. Peterson wrote in a letter to employees and volunteers. The “32-bed unit, which has been struggling financially for the past five years, has been averaging a daily census of 10 patients, sometimes [having] as few as four patients a day.”

Paula Lewis, the hospital vice president who oversees the unit, said many of the 40 nurses, social workers, activity therapists and mental health workers affected will be assigned to other duties at the hospital. Others may be offered jobs at hospitals owned by parent company Adventist Health in East Los Angeles and Glendale.

The 18-year-old mental health unit, which provides inpatient care for adults with problems including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, will be closed after state regulators and city and county officials are notified and the remaining patients can be safely discharged and referred to other facilities.

Because most insurance plans cover only outpatient mental health treatment, a number of hospital-based programs, which are labor-intensive due to 24-hour care, have been phased out nationwide, Lewis said.

“Nobody was surprised. Most everybody was sad, but pretty much resigned to the inevitable,” she said.