California prison hospital official on leave

The Department of State Hospitals' chief deputy director, the face of a controversial mental health program in Salinas Valley State Prison, is on extended leave.

In an email distributed to the staff statewide Monday, department director Cliff Allenby announced that "due to unforeseen circumstances, Chief Deputy Director Kathy Gaither will be out of the office for an extended period of time."

The department did not disclose the reason for Gaither's departure, or even acknowledge it earlier this week.

The announcement follows a federal court order to investigate complaints of dangerously low staffing levels at the department's mental health unit inside the prison in Soledad ? allegations Gaither denied in recent court testimony.

There have been two inmate deaths in the past year at a program that saw none in the previous 10 years and was once the pride of the state's prison mental health system.

Staffers at the unit say there is an ongoing shortage of soap and clean clothes and sheets, and that psychiatric and nursing staff levels remain dangerously low.

One psychiatrist has testified that he and others were pressured to discharge patients early because of court orders to reduce waiting lists, an allegation Gaither also denied at her recent court appearance in a long-running federal case about California prison mental health care.

The same week as Gaither's testimony, The Herald published a January 2012 memo from a DSH administrator telling Salinas Valley staffers that the department wanted the staff to limit patient stays to less than nine months, and that "we are being reported as barriers ... by not moving patients in a timely manner to reduce the waitlist."

The department said it "has no such policy to discharge patients at nine months, or any set time period. Nor did we have such a policy or direction in January of 2012."

Allenby said in this week's email that all employee communication intended for Gaither should now be sent to him.

For some reason, Allenby's announcement Monday of the news about Gaither was not delivered to the Salinas Valley program's staff, who received an apologetic email Wednesday saying department officials were looking into why the prison unit's staff members were left off the mailing list.

Gaither is no newcomer to state politics. She worked nearly 20 years at the Department of Finance and then for the Cal State University system before she was appointed Undersecretary of Education by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009.

In January 2012, the California Senate confirmed her appointment by Gov. Jerry Brown as deputy director of the state hospitals department, which at the time was called the Department of Mental Health, where she had been acting deputy director since 2011.

Gaither's leave comes after a sweeping overhaul of the Salinas Valley unit's administration, including replacing its Executive Director Charles DaSilva.

Salinas Valley's patient care and psychiatrist staffing levels remain a key issue in the federal lawsuit after nine psychiatrists wrote letters to DaSilva in January, saying they were working "under protest" because of unsafe working conditions.

Last week, Judge Lawrence Karlton ordered a federal special master to investigate the program and report his findings in 75 days.

Julia Reynolds can be reached at 648-1187 or jreynolds@montereyherald.com.

Source: http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_23690863/prison-hospital-official-leave?source=rss_viewed

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