The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) had made demands last week that the Department of Mental Health increase staffing at Patton and Atascadero State Hospitals to reduce the number of attacks on employees. In response, the Department of Mental Health has issued hundreds of letters notifying hospital employees of layoffs.

It certainly seems contradictory to the rule of law concerning worker safety.

Mona Mosk, a psychologist at Patton told the media, “It makes no sense for DMH to start laying off treatment staff at the same time that Cal/OSHA is telling them they have to increase staff to keep us safe.”

Cal/OSHA has put the blame squarely on DMH for on-the-job injuries including “severe head trauma, fractures, contusions, lacerations and bites.” Last year Cal/OSHA requested that staffing be maintained at adequate levels at Metropolitan and Napa State Hospital following the strangulation of a worker by a patient.

Flouting the division’s recommendations to increase staffing and worker safety, the DMH is conducting layoff plans submitted to the Department of Personnel Administration on February 28.

The Department of Mental Health as also started contacting labor unions to discuss their plans to reduce the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, rehabilitation therapists, and psychiatric technician who provide care and treatment to hospital patients.

The Department of Mental Health’s logic seems to be like if there are no workers then there is no need of worker safety, and the need of worker safety can be reduced rather by reducing the number of caregivers than by increasing security.

Industry sources say that the administration functioning in the Department of Mental Health has gone haywire since the decision to close it was taken by the government. They have always acted as if laws were not applicable to them, and in a last act of defiance they are trying to layoff as many employees as possible before they lose their own authority by closure.

While it is common knowledge that understaffed mental hospitals can prove disastrous, the California Department of Mental Health is thinning down an already understaffed infrastructure.