Workers Bid Farewell to Mental Hospital

The banner over the shuttered psychiatric hospital said it all:

“Closed for business. We’ve fought to serve, we’ve served to fight

It was draped over the doorway at Anacapa by the Sea as about 40 of the hospital’s former employees gathered Thursday for a subdued farewell.

Nearly 120 workers lost their jobs and about 60 patients were hurriedly transferred elsewhere when the Port Hueneme hospital abruptly closed this week. Hospital executives said the institution was mortally wounded by a managed care system that failed to cover the costs of providing expensive psychiatric treatment.

At Thursday’s observance on the hospital’s front lawn, pictures were taken, goodbyes said, tears shed and a message somberly delivered.

“I just wanted to be together with you who have been together with me,” said Charles Morris, Anacapa’s president and chief executive. “This is a terribly sad day.”

Some employees had lined up jobs at other hospitals, but others didn’t know where their next paycheck would come from. At a table laden with cookies and pizza, a hospital official announced that someone from the state would be on hand to talk about unemployment insurance, and representatives from local colleges would distribute information on job retraining.

Maria Lejom had heard it all before.

The psychiatric nurse had been knocked out of a job when Camarillo State Hospital closed in 1997.

“I’m having the same feelings now that I had then,” she said. “But this place has made me a better nurse, a better person.”

Some said the hospital offered both them and the patients a sense of family.

Trena Adams said she took a leave from her job in New York six weeks ago for a temporary return to Anacapa’s insurance department.

“They needed me,” she said. “This place has always been in my heart. It’s done wonders for a lot of people. It’s saved lives.”

As an acute-care hospital, Anacapa treated inpatients for an average of 10 to 12 days. Its outpatient program helped many of those patients for four hours a day over a few months as they readjusted to life outside, often in local board-and-care homes.

Some staff members Thursday worried that the patients would no longer have help with their medications. Many take as many as six pills daily, and dosages must frequently be adjusted to minimize side effects.

“If they didn’t show up here, we’d drive over to their board-and-care and get them out of bed,” said Sue Hadley, Anacapa’s nursing director.

Through the years, some patients became regulars at Anacapa. Staff members got to know them and would draw joy out of the progress they made.

Hadley told of one patient in a wheelchair who tried to comfort her during the shutdown.

“He managed to get up from his wheelchair and hug me,” she said. “It just killed me.”

Steps, a substance-abuse program affiliated with Anacapa, will remain open in its quarters near the hospital.