Inmates suffering severe mental disorders are being denied timely access to inpatient treatment, according to a former chief psychiatrist and medical director at San Quentin State Prison.
Dr. Christopher S. Wadsworth fi led a lawsuit in May against the California prison system alleging that the inpatient care at San Quentin is “clinically irresponsible” and deprives inmate-patients of their constitutional rights.
The suit takes issue with patient care facilitated by Eric Monthei, San Quentin’s mental health chief. Specifically, it criticizes a 2014 program that placed 10 Death Row inmates in a 17-bed crisis unit at San Quentin’s health care facility. This displaced other patients struggling with severe mental illness, Wadsworth said. The lawsuit claims that Monthei’s program was responding to a 2013 court order that San Quentin address the mental health needs of its Death Row inmates.
The program forced some highly suicidal inmates into holding cells that inadequately suited their needs, Wadsworth stated. Dozens of these inmates were kept in overflow cells for periods exceeding four days, violating court agreements, the lawsuit claims. It further alleges that these displaced inmates required round-the-clock nurses until they were properly placed into an adequate inpatient treatment setting.
Wadsworth’s suit alleges that some inmates were transferred to “distant institutions,” such as High Desert State Prison (301 miles), Pelican Bay State Prison (349 miles), California State Prison, Los Angeles County (364 miles) and California Institution for Men (422 miles).
“Without Monthei’s non-clinical instruction, these unnecessary transfers would not have endangered the patients, staff, and put the public at risk by these patients, many of whom were suffering from acute episodes of psychotic illness,” the lawsuit reads. “These patients belonged in hospital beds located at SQSP, not on our public roadways.”
The lawsuit details the stories of some of the displaced prisoners, including a patient who allegedly was transported incorrectly and unnecessarily to Corcoran State Prison.
In another instance, a team of officers forcefully extracted a severely psychotic inmate from his cell after he failed to comply with his transfer to an overflow cell. According to the lawsuit, following this incident, the patient’s psychiatrist wrote, “This violent extraction was avoidable and predictable since this patient should have been admitted into (an) inpatient acute care treatment room, which are specially designed to be safe for patients in acute distress.”
Wadsworth, who is still employed at San Quentin, called prison officials’ actions “inconsistent with well-established court orders and laws designed to remedy the ongoing constitutional inadequacy of California’s prison healthcare.” His current capacity was unclear. As of this newspaper’s deadline, prison officials had not responded to the lawsuit.
