Mental Hospitals

The U.S. military said Wednesday it was holding the administrator of a psychiatric hospital on suspicion that he may have helped insurgents find mentally disabled women to carry bombs that devastated two Baghdad markets this month. The Feb. 1 blasts, which Iraqi officials said killed 99 people, marked the worst violence to hit the capital since a buildup of U.S. troops was completed in June. The day after the attacks, U.S.

UCLA's neuropsychiatric hospital has banned all cellphones and laptop computers after a patient posted group photos of other patients on a social networking website, officials confirmed Monday. Dr. Thomas Strouse, medical director of the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, said in a statement that the decision was part of "UCLA Health System's ongoing efforts to enhance patient privacy and confidentiality in compliance with California's patient rights law."

Four weeks ago, Maria and Rafael Alarcon took their son, Jorge, to the hospital, worried that he had become psychotic. After months of odd behavior, he'd told his mother he was a lion. He tried to bite his father. Just having Jorge admitted to the County-USC Medical Center mental hospital in Rosemead brought his family a measure of relief. "My daughter said, 'Bueno. He's there. He's protected. He's safe,' " said Maria Alarcon of Pasadena..

Psychiatric Solutions Inc. was on its way to becoming the nation's leading provider of private psychiatric care when it snapped up Sierra Vista Hospital in Sacramento in mid-2005. The company put its well-honed business formula into action: Staffing fell. Beds filled up. Profits soared. It was a winning strategy for investors. But for some patients, federal records show, checking into Sierra Vista proved dangerous -- at times deadly.

Bethlem Royal Hospital in London is one of the oldest psychiatric hospitals in the world -- and perhaps the only one to have endured centuries of notoriety for fetters, flogging, filth and exploitation. (In the 1700s, Londoners could pay an admission fee to see and torment the patients.) Today Bethlem, vastly improved, is part of Britain's National Health Service -- and, popularly called Bedlam, is also part of the English language.

Court orders mandating drastic pay increases for health personnel in California prisons have led to an exodus of workers from state mental hospitals and left the facilities struggling to provide adequate patient care. Staff shortages at Atascadero State Hospital, where psychiatrist vacancies stand at 70%, have caused the facility to all but freeze new admissions.

Kanuri Qawi's unlikely 2004 court victory has had a lasting impact on California mental hospitals, adding to what one doctor calls a "culture of refusal," as more patients reject their medication. In the aftermath of Qawi's lawsuit, hospital officials are now required to hold what are known as Qawi hearings and must demonstrate clearly that a patient paroled to the hospital is dangerous before they can force medication.

ON a crisp afternoon last fall, a police officer responding to a 911 call pulled onto an abandoned military base on the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay. Six dreary naval housing blocks, converted into apartments for down-on-their-luck veterans, had been painted with labels meant to inspire: Hope, Resolve. The door to Apartment B, in the building called Courage, was open. The man who had summoned police, Kanuri Qawi, was waiting casually in the doorway, a glass of soda in his hand.

Five lawmakers with state mental hospitals in their districts called on the Legislature's budget chairs Tuesday to address an accelerating staffing shortage at the institutions, calling it "a crisis of meltdown proportions." The urgently worded letter came in the wake of a Times report that two Atascadero State Hospital patients had killed themselves and four others had attempted suicide since early February -- an alarming increase that some have tied directly to the staffing shortage.

State-employed psychiatric technicians, psychologists and other healthcare workers are readying a series of demonstrations designed to draw attention to California's mental hospitals, which are beset with a staffing crisis that employees contend is eroding safety and patient care. Members of the California Assn.