Staff at Mental Health Clinic Torn by Decision to Stay Open

A last-minute decision by Los Angeles County officials to leave eight mental health clinics open indefinitely has left workers at a center in Arcadia with mixed emotions.

“It’s just more of the roller coaster ride that you can’t get off of,” said Liz McLeod, a clerk at the Arcadia Mental Health Center, which serves the San Gabriel Valley.

The center, 330 E. Live Oak Ave., was one of eight mental health clinics that county officials had planned to close by Monday, because of budget cutbacks. But officials reversed their decision late Monday afternoon after a state Supreme Court ruling cast doubt on the legality of the closures.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to commit $3.25 million toward keeping the clinics open. Like seven other clinics that had closed at the end of the day Monday, the Arcadia center will remain open until August.

The Arcadia center, which handles 1,200 patient visits a month, first opened in 1966 and serves a population of more than 2 million people, said John Wells, a district director who heads the Arcadia center.

The clinics have faced an uncertain fate since last August when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge blocked the county from closing the facilities. Last month, a state Court of Appeal ruling permitted the closures. The state Supreme Court official said the court has about 70 days to decide the clinics’ fate.

At 5 p.m. Monday, workers at the Arcadia center taped signs on the front door, announcing that the facility would be closed. But less than an hour later, they received word that county officials had decided to keep the clinics open.

After receiving word of the county’s decision, mental health technician Eugene Marquez immediately notified law enforcement agencies that the center’s mobile Psychiatric Emergency Team would still be available.

“They were very happy,” Marquez said. Law enforcement authorities had worried that without the center and its mobile team, police officers would have to evaluate and transport mentally ill people to a county psychiatric unit in Norwalk.

Therapist Gloria Carrillo welcomed the news of the reopening because patients will be able to continue receiving treatment at the center, but other staff members dreaded the lingering uncertainty about the center’s future.

“If this is just temporary, just go ahead and close it,” said Evie Brown, Wells’ administrative assistant. “You can’t believe the turmoil you go through.”

Therapist Richard Cabrera also said he was disappointed by county officials’ change of heart.

“It’s just like being taunted,” Cabrera said. “It’s very painful.”

Although the center is supposed to remain open for business as usual, most patient files have been packed away in cardboard cartons, and hundreds of patients had been referred to other clinics to continue their treatment.

Two of the center’s 30 staff members had decided to retire, and three clerks had accepted jobs with other county agencies. The remaining staff still had not heard where they would be transferred.

Brown said the three clerks who had accepted jobs elsewhere still plan to leave.

“They didn’t want to go through this roller coaster ride again,” she said.

The uncertainty also has been stressful for patients.

“We’ve already had six pretty serious (patient overdoses) in the last 10 days,” Wells said. He said the suicide attempts were related to the center’s closing.

Cabrera said that for many patients, news of the center’s closing relegated them to a position of helplessness and triggered a sense of abandonment. Ninety percent of the center’s patients suffer from severe depression. Therapists said they tried to refer patients to one of seven other treatment clinics in the area, but many patients, reluctant to change therapists or clinics, refused the referrals.

Although the fate of the clinic remains uncertain, some staff members are thankful for the reprieve.

“The anticipation is always frustrating,” said Joe Reiser, a mobile emergency team member. “But the bottom line is I’m happy we’re still here.”