Inquiry Into the County Mental Health Services

The apparent lack of acute care beds in Emergency Psychiatric Service has been resolved with the budgetary augmentation from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors totaling $11.2 million over a period of two years. Of these funds, approximately $8.0 million, which includes $5.6 million ongoing, were utilized for contracting additional beds in the Institute of Mental Disease/Skilled Nursing Facility and a Residential Care Facility. This allowed a more systematic flow of patients from Barbara Arons Pavilion to those facilities. This, in turn, permitted Emergency Psychiatric Service to stay within the required “no more than” 24 hour care and eliminated overstays. 2

There are no inpatient psychiatric treatment facilities located in Santa Clara County for minors. There is a twenty-bed unit in the Don Lowe Pavilion that is currently unused. County Mental Health contracts for child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric services out of the area. This creates a substantial financial hardship on the families, especially those of low income, thus making it difficult for them to participate in the therapeutic treatment of their children. It also places an additional burden on the county, since ambulance fees and transport costs are added to the cost of treatment.