Ending Generations of Service at Hospital

As a boy, Jim Thompson got to know Camarillo State Hospital as well as anyone who has ever spent time there.

As far back as he can remember, he would tag along with his mother to the mental institution, trailing her onto a ward where she cared for autistic children for nearly two decades.

When he could, Thompson would play with those youngsters, housed in a red-brick building tucked deep in a corner of the hospital campus.

Other times he would run off by himself, free to explore just as far as his curiosity would take him.

So it came as no surprise that shortly after he graduated from Ventura High in 1978, Thompson signed on to work at Camarillo State, following in his mother’s footsteps and joining a unique fraternity of hospital workers whose employment stretched from one generation to another.

“I pretty much grew up around the state hospital,” said Thompson, 36, who has put in 18 years at the facility only to watch it lurch now into its final days.

“Really, it feels like my whole life has been spent here,” he added. “A lot of families have worked here, devoting their lives to the place. It’s really sad to see it all coming to an end.”

With Camarillo State Hospital set to close June 30, its legacy can be measured in many ways.

It can be measured by patients who improved enough to leave institutional care, finding their way into the larger community. And it can be measured by doctors who dedicated their careers to lifting clients out of a world of delusion and disability.

But it also can be measured by a small army of state employees who, day in and day out, provided the muscle and the energy to keep the place running.

Among them were the sons and daughters of hospital employees, workers who followed a path laid by generations before them.

Indeed, entire families--brothers and sisters, husbands and wives--were able to find jobs at the hospital complex, building their lives on the rock-steady foundation provided by state employment.

“It was not uncommon to have second- or even third-generation employees working here,” said Brian Bowley, who heads the hospital’s largest labor union. “It became a way of life for many families. That’s why there’s such a profound sense of loss with the closure.”

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Up on old Unit 68, things look pretty much the same to Thompson. The red-brick building was his first introduction to the state hospital, the place where his mother started bringing him when he was about 8 years old.

The unit, which used to house autistic children, has been converted into the admissions office for Camarillo’s children’s unit.

But inside and out, it hasn’t changed much. Along one corridor, murals painted years ago by Thompson’s mother, Kay, still line the walls. And just outside the ward is an old playground, complete with slides and a set of monkey bars made up to look like a sea serpent.

“I didn’t want them to be afraid of the people out there,” said 67-year-old Kay Thompson, whose daughter, Terry, also eventually landed a job at the state hospital.

Jim Thompson remembers spending a lot of time at the facility as a kid. He remembers how the cafeteria would get its milk delivered in large metal vats and how the hospital’s bakery would supply fresh bread.

And he remembers hiking the hospital grounds as he got older, going as far as an old water tower high atop a nearby hill.

He said it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to sign up for a state hospital job just as soon as he was able.

“I guess I got it from my mom,” said Thompson, who has been working with developmentally disabled adults since he started at the facility in early 1979. “She was raising those kids like she was raising me. She devoted her whole life to them. I saw that and wanted to do the same thing.”

Now, he is all that remains of the Thompson family at Camarillo State. His mother retired in 1983 after nearly 20 years at the facility. His sister left in 1989, after a seven-year stretch as a psychiatric technician.

And come the end of the month, Thompson will be gone as well, unwilling to stay around and watch as the hospital shuts down over the next couple of months.

“I’m kind of attached to the place, and it’s sad to see it close,” said Thompson, who on May 1 will open his own group home in Ventura and will take in two of his longtime patients.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “So many good people have worked here over the years, and now they’ve got to move on.”

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The exodus of state employees has been going on for months now. Offices have been cleared, personal belongings boxed up and carted off. Going-away parties have become almost routine.

Already, about 550 employees have left the state hospital since March of last year, so many departures, in fact, that retirees and staff from other facilities have been brought in to help keep the place running.

And if patient transfers start as expected later this month, employees will start bolting from the facility in a big way.

Some will follow their clients to other institutions. Others are searching for jobs locally, hoping to avoid leaving family and friends.

After 27 years at the state hospital, Camarillo resident Carla Gilmour is still undecided about what to do once the place shuts down.

Her family spans four generations at Camarillo State. Both her grandmother and her mother worked at the state hospital, starting in the early 1950s. So did two of her daughters and two sisters.

“I think we all thought it was a very secure job,” said Gilmour, 48, a longtime psychiatric technician who now works in medical records. “And for a long time, it was. We had all heard rumors over the years, but I don’t think anyone ever thought this time would come.”

Gilmour remembers sleeping overnight as a girl with her grandmother in the hospital’s employee housing complex. And she remembers how one of her daughters, Kimberly, started at the hospital at age 16 as a youth aid, working her way up to a full-time job years later.

Now only she and another daughter, Rebecca, remain. Neither knows what the future holds. But they know that the clock is ticking and time is running out.

“I’m so sad, but I’m angry too,” Gilmour said. “I’ve spent so many years here, over half my life. Now I feel like I’m just getting booted out.”

Jim Thompson shares the same sense of loss. Come April 30, he will check out of the state hospital, turning in his keys and driving away from the facility for the last time.

This is a place where he celebrated birthdays and holidays, a place that was like a second home.

“I loved my job, and I felt like I was really making a difference,” he said. “They are like my family almost. And I really enjoyed being able to help them become more independent and live life to the fullest.”