Judge Delays Hospital Compliance Ruling

With Camarillo State Hospital only two weeks from closure, a judge Monday put off deciding whether state officials have complied with her order aimed at assuring that certain patients would not be harmed by being transferred to other facilities.

In mid-May, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne decreed that the mental hospital would stay open until the state could ensure that those patients would receive the same or comparable care away from the Camarillo mental hospital.

That preliminary injunction stemmed from a lawsuit filed earlier this year on behalf of Camarillo patients seeking to spare the hospital from closure.

In the end, however, the order applied to only four patients.

And earlier this month, the parents of those patients agreed to the transfers, prompting state officials to return to court Monday to show they had complied with Wayne’s order.

But in an effort to keep alive the legal action, Ron Gold, the Calabasas attorney representing the Camarillo patients, advanced new arguments Monday, hoping to persuade Wayne to appoint a special master to oversee the care of hundreds of former Camarillo patients who have been moved to other facilities in recent months.

Wayne was not persuaded.

“Mr. Gold, I don’t think we’re on the same page,” she said. “This was a hearing set specifically to hear if there was compliance. If you want a different hearing, you’re a lawyer, you know how to do it. I want to know about the four people, that’s all I want to know about.”

Wayne set a new court date of June 30, the same day the hospital is set to shut down. But with all of the patients already gone, state officials said the delay will have no practical effect on the closure.

“Mr. Gold wants to go beyond the issues in this lawsuit,” said Richard T. Waldow, deputy attorney general. “Clearly the judge doesn’t tend to agree with that and neither do we.”