Raises OKd for State Mental Health Workers

The state Department of Mental Health has agreed to grant substantial raises to nurses and some doctors at California’s mental hospitals, where employees say severe staffing shortages have left them overworked and vulnerable to patient assaults.

The decision, finalized late Wednesday, follows a December court order mandating an 18% raise for nurses and a 10% raise for doctors in the state’s prisons. Since the December increase, beleaguered mental hospital staff have been leaving to take comparable jobs in corrections.

Under the emergency measure authorized Wednesday, nurses and physicians at the mental hospitals -- with the apparent exception of psychiatrists -- will receive comparable raises effective March 1, union leaders were informed.

“It’s good news,” said Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre. “Our main concerns at all of our facilities are still safety and staffing -- and better salaries leads to better staffing.”

Department of Mental Health Director Stephen Mayberg had been pressing for the raises since the December court ruling, said Macintyre.

Although details are not final, the decision apparently does not affect psychiatrists, psychiatric technicians, psychologists or other mental hospital staff who will seek raises in upcoming contract negotiations, union leaders and hospital officials said.

Mandatory overtime and growing assaults by patients on staff and other patients have plagued the state’s mental hospitals, but have been particularly pronounced at Metropolitan in Norwalk and Atascadero, which is north of San Luis Obispo. At Atascadero, which treats patients funneled through the criminal justice system, a fourth of budgeted positions are vacant.

Atascadero spokeswoman Barrie Hafler called the news “a hopeful sign that there will be relief in salaries, which will bring us staff.”

But she said the hospital is “anxiously awaiting” comparable raises for other job categories.

Christopher Dunn, a registered nurse and steward for Service Employees International Union Local 1000, said broader change is needed.

“The 18% is all good and well,” said Dunn, who still plans to leave Atascadero later this month for a job at nearby California Men’s Colony. “But people are leaving ... for a reason other than the pay; it’s the mandatory overtime and the workload.”