4 Honored for Blowing Whistle on Hospital

Four current and former professional staffers at Hillcrest mental hospital--reluctant celebrities all--were honored here Monday for showing “extraordinary courage by blowing the whistle on death and malpractice” in the San Diego County hospital.

Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), who has introduced legislation to protect government “whistle blowers” from reprisals, presented the four men with laudatory resolutions, then introduced them on the floor of the state Assembly.

Psychiatrist Zalman Magid, social worker Sidney Rhodes and psychologists James Hardison and Martin Schorr stood and acknowledged the polite applause from state lawmakers.

Afterward, however, they had few comments for capital reporters.

Stirling said the four were largely responsible for calling attention to life-threatening conditions at the county-run hospital and touching off federal, state and local investigations that have prompted a number of staff and procedural changes.

A state audit concluded last year that at least three recent deaths at the hospital “may have been preventable.”

County officials insist that the hospital, which faces a possible cutoff of federal Medicare and state Medi-Cal funding, has improved since state officials threatened to close it in August. Since then, the hospital’s administration has been reorganized and a new administrator hired. Today, the county Board of Supervisors will consider a boost in the hospital’s budget to fund further improvements.

Hillcrest’s acting medical director, Harold Mavritte, said that except for Magid, who had been named in earlier news accounts, the hospital staffers’ appearance in Sacramento Monday was “the first indication I have had that these persons so named are the alleged whistle blowers.”

“If Mr. Stirling is saying that these people have given him information and he wants to commend them for it, that’s his business,” Mavritte added.

Of the four Hillcrest staffers who came to Sacramento Monday at Stirling’s invitation, all except Schorr still work at Hillcrest.

Schorr, who retired last year after 25 years with the county Mental Health Department, said he does not feel he has “been punished for anything I have done . . . I think I have been fairly treated,” he said.

But Magid, facing an administrative hearing and reassigned to what his lawyer says are largely clerical duties at the hospital, said he has been singled out by county officials because he complained to the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance and others.

“Part of the reason is that it (punishing him) is a deterrent for others,” Magid said Monday. “It really stifles freedom of speech.”

Hardison and Rhodes declined to talk with reporters in Sacramento. But along with the others, they met Monday afternoon with officials of the state’s Department of Mental Health and Department of Health Services in Stirling’s office.

Stirling said the meeting with state officials had not been planned when he invited the men up “to commend them.” He said he asked them to speak to the state officials, however, after they told of what was described as recent incidents in which one patient was allowed to escape and another was badly burned after being released too soon.

“I just continue to be overwhelmed about how wrong things are there,” Stirling said Monday. “It is just incredible.”

Stirling has called the county’s In-Patient Staff Assn., the administrative panel before which Magid is facing a disciplinary proceeding for improper record keeping, “a kangaroo court.”

He said it was because of Magid that he introduced legislation to expand protections to government employees who expose wrongdoing, mismanagement, waste and threats to public health and safety.

Mavritte said he has been concerned for some time that individuals talking to Stirling and others may be violating hospital policies and state laws regarding patient confidentiality.

But he said he and other county officials “are between a rock and hard place.”

“If I did anything . . . it would be perceived by some individuals as harassment and punishment.”

So far, Stirling’s bill has breezed through two legislative committees and is listed on the full Assembly’s “consent calendar,” which makes it eligible for approval without debate or discussion. The measure could be approved by the Assembly and sent to the Senate as early as Wednesday.