Mental Hospital Dogged by Complaints to Close

A West Hills mental hospital beset by county and state probes of alleged patient care violations is in the process of permanently shutting down.

Officials said the closure of the 80-bed, seven-acre private facility stems from the loss of a key license in December and severe financial problems.

Pine Grove Hospital’s outpatient program will cease by the end of this week, administrator Larry McFarland said. In-patient care ended last Friday.

“We certainly felt like we were on the right track in making all the changes and improvements we had to make,” McFarland said.

But cancellation of the facility’s license by the county Department of Mental Health for patient care violations that included alleged sexual misconduct made it financially impossible to continue operating the hospital, he said. “Without the ability to take in a certain number of patients, you just can’t do it.”

The patient census had fallen to 20 or less in recent weeks.

After uncovering 11 alleged care-related violations, including sexual assault, sex between minors and self-mutilation by two patients, the county in December barred Pine Grove from treating involuntarily admitted mentally ill patients. The move deprived the hospital, owned by Arizona-based Doctors Community Healthcare Corp., of a significant part of its Medi-Cal funding.

Doctors Community Healthcare has itself been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since November.

In February the hospital was cited by state officials for additional problems, including failure to perform psychiatric evaluations, inadequate staffing and improper administration of medication.

About 50 full-time and 15 part-time workers are losing their jobs, along with about 30 per-diem employees, McFarland said.

The parent company, which has owned the facility for several years, was “trying to do everything they could to keep the doors open,” the administrator said. But without the county license, “we could not get a census back up to operate in financial good standing.”

The county and state investigations resulted from the rape last August of a 13-year-old girl by a 17-year-old fellow patient, who later pleaded guilty to committing a lewd act with a child.