Hospital Official Retiring

The official who oversees the state’s mental hospitals announced this week that he is stepping down, just as the facilities are facing a federal consent decree to correct widespread problems with patient care.

John Rodriguez, the Department of Mental Health’s deputy director for long-term care, announced his retirement Thursday and will depart at the end of June.

The news came as a shock to hospital staffers and union representatives, some of whom questioned how it would affect implementation of sweeping federal demands and worried about whether more top-level changes are coming.

With the help of an out-of-state mental health consultant, Rodriguez has worked to remake the hospital system’s approach to care since federal investigators in 2002 first found sweeping problems, including misdiagnoses and excessive use of medication and restraints.

Some praised Rodriguez on Friday as energetic, savvy and trustworthy.

But others said he had failed to achieve enough reforms and had promoted some that federal officials criticized in findings released earlier this month as damaging to patients.

“For him to be leaving now is concerning to everyone, since he’s been the one OKing the changes,” said Dr. Michael Lisiak, Atascadero State Hospital’s chief of staff and vice president of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists there. “It sure sends up a lot of questions.”

Added Joe Bader, the union’s Southern California regional director: “The feds are slamming the department on many different fronts -- for not providing proper care, not having enough staffing.... This adds more chaos. He’s the hands-on, day-to-day guy.”

Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said Rodriguez would not discuss his decision.

“He’s retiring, not resigning, and he doesn’t feel that he needs to defend that decision in the press,” Macintyre wrote in an e-mail.

She said Rodriguez had planned his departure for at least a year. He has been at the department since 1997 and in state service for 32 years.

Since the announcement was only a day old, she said, “It’s too early to comment on what’s going to happen next. We’ll manage just fine.”

Rodriguez’s announcement had nothing to do with the U.S. Department of Justice investigation, she said.

That probe began four years ago at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, and federal civil rights investigators more recently completed others at Napa State Hospital in Napa, the Central Coast’s Atascadero and San Bernardino’s Patton.

Justice Department officials across the country have promoted a “recovery model” that involves patients in their own care and takes a more individualized and multidisciplinary approach to treatment.

Even before investigators finished their Metropolitan probe, the state hired Virginia psychologist Nirbhay Singh to help change the culture of the 5,000-patient system.

But the last four years have been trying. Staff shortages have prompted widespread mandatory overtime, leaving workers exhausted and less able to protect themselves and patients from harm.

In December, The Times found that Metropolitan was less safe for patients and staff than before the federal probe began.

And in findings released this month, investigators said attempts to shift to the new model of care at Patton State Hospital and create a “treatment mall,” where hundreds of patients attend life-skills classes, had depersonalized care -- the opposite of what the model intends.

Although the state had hoped to avert a consent decree -- and obtain a more flexible solution -- federal authorities filed suit along with a lengthy decree that aims to resolve the litigation. It lays out detailed reforms and appoints a court monitor to oversee the changes.

Rodriguez just two weeks ago welcomed the decree as a “road map” for change and said he hoped that he could secure a budget enhancement to help implement it.

His retirement was unexpected. Keith Hearn, spokesman for the California Assn. of Psychiatric Technicians, said he was “shocked” by it and called Rodriguez “a straight-up kind of guy” with “good ideas.”

“We’re sorry to see him go,” said Hearn, whose union, like most that represent the hospitals’ 9,000 workers, is currently in contract negotiations with the state.

“He’s been one of the most savvy administrators we’ve worked with,” Hearn said. “During this difficult time, it would have been better to have John on board. He knows what’s happening. But if this is his choice to be retiring, we wish him well.”

Speculation about what led Rodriguez to retire was rampant. Lisiak noted that legislators who have recently held hearings about problems at the state hospitals have expressed displeasure with top Department of Mental Health administrators.

“Now, a few months later, bingo bango,” he said, adding that it leads to questions about whether other high-level officials could also leave. “The facts speak for themselves. The system is worse off than ever. Things are falling apart.”

Jim Hard, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, traced the problems to the governor’s office, blaming Sacramento for allowing the prison and mental health systems to deteriorate so much that federal officials felt the need to step in.

He predicted that more mental health officials would leave, much as top administrators at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have.

Like the prison system, the Department of Mental Health “got federal court intervention to make it do its job,” Hard said. “There’s an effect. It makes for really weak secondary leadership.

“I don’t think there’s going to be a shake-up; I say there’s going to be a shake-down,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if more people didn’t want to stay at DMH.”