Mental Health Clinics’ Doors to Remain Open : County Backs Away From Closing Centers After Supreme Court Ruling

Los Angeles County officials backed off late Monday from plans to shut down eight mental health centers today after a state Supreme Court ruling that cast doubt on whether the county legally can proceed with the cutbacks.

“Upon advice of county counsel, we will open the clinics” today, said Roberto Quiroz, county mental health director. “It’s a change of course.”

The last-minute reversal surprised clinic workers who earlier had closed their doors for what they had thought was their last day. At some clinics, workers had already posted closure notices, transferred patients and physically dismantled facilities.

The state Supreme Court issued a one-sentence ruling Monday saying it was “unnecessary” to grant an emergency request made last Friday by four legal aid groups seeking to block the clinics’ closure. Legal aid attorneys had petitioned to keep the clinics open until the high court could rule on the county’s planned cutbacks.

70 Days to Decide

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling was the latest twist in a prolonged legal fight over the clinics. Last August, a Superior Court judge blocked the county from closing the clinics. But last month, a state Court of Appeal ruled that the closures could proceed.

A state Supreme Court official said Monday that the court has about 70 days to decide the clinics’ fate. It is unclear, however, whether the clinics will remain open until the justices act.

Quiroz said he hopes to have “further definitive information” later this week on how to interpret the high court’s action.

Jim Carroll, executive director of the San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services Inc., which represents indigent mentally ill patients, said he was heartened by the decision to open the clinics today.

“I’m encouraged. As long as patients have a chance of going to these clinics, they still have a chance of getting care,” he said.

Steven L. Fishman, director of the San Antonio Somos Familias mental health clinic in Bell Gardens, which was scheduled to close, said he was delighted to learn Monday night that his clinic would be open today. But he said he did not know how long the reprieve will last.

‘State of Chaos’

“We’re in a state of chaos right now. Half our patients are out the door and headed for other clinics, and some of my staff members are already leaving to go elsewhere,” he said.

Also, the Board of Supervisors today will consider proposals to find enough money to keep at least some of the clinics open. Board Chairman Ed Edelman recommends allocating $3.2 million in surplus property taxes to help the clinics.

But some mental health workers Monday expressed frustration with their uncertain future, saying they would rather shut down the clinics than keep them open on a temporary basis.

The shutdown of the eight clinics and reductions in services at five of the remaining 20 outpatient centers is necessary to meet an annual $18-million shortfall in state funds, county officials said. But the move will also disrupt or eliminate services for many patients and cost 226 jobs for mental health workers. An additional 150 workers will be reassigned to jobs with less responsibilities.

The county’s turnaround Monday came after some patients and their therapists had shared tearful partings, and workers from neighboring centers were invited to take their pick of wall hangings, books and supplies.

“It feels like you’re giving away parts of your body to somebody who could use them. We’re giving away parts of our clinic so that other programs can do better,” said Dr. Joel Foxman, director of the Coastal Community Mental Health Clinic in Carson, which provided therapy, counseling or medication to about 1,500 patients at its peak. At Coastal on Monday, signs were posted in Spanish and English announcing its shutdown as of 5 p.m.

Terry Gock, acting program head of the South Bay Mental Health Services, who went to Coastal on Monday to select supplies, said: “I hate it. It feels like raiding a morgue.”

Legal aid attorneys say care for 20,000 mental health patients will be affected if some clinics are closed and others scaled back. But county mental health officials said Monday that a steady exodus of patients from the clinics has meant that, by January, only about 5,600 patients were being treated at the eight clinics, and 4,000 of those patients are already in line for treatment at other county-run clinics.

Fernando Escarcega, district director of mental health for the San Fernando Valley, said staffing at the West Valley clinic in Canoga Park and East San Fernando clinic in North Hollywood is down about 40%. And while the two clinics used to treat a total of about 2,800 patients, the caseload has now dropped to about 1,850. Word of pending clinic closures, he said, drove them away. Virtually none of them, he said, were formally referred to other facilities.

“Those people” he said, “didn’t get well. They’re out there. They’re disconnected. They will come back into our jail system, our state hospital system and local acute hospital system and they will be on the streets, homeless.”

Darlene Delong, acting director of the West San Fernando Valley Mental Health Services, has declared that if the clinic were closed, “our patients will have no realistic place to go. We are the only mental health facility in this part of the Valley.”

Other out-patient mental health clinics scheduled to close today were San Antonio in Bell Gardens; San Pedro Mental Health Services; Wilmington Mental Health Services; Arcadia Mental Health Center, and a clinic located within the Hubert Humphrey Comprehensive Health Center.

At the San Antonio clinic, Director Fishman said that one-third of the clinic’s 650 patients would not be able to be accommodated by any other county facility. Times staff writers Amy Pyle, James Gomez and Ginger Thompson contributed to this article.