The newly opened Stockton Health Care Facility, built to provide medical and psychiatric care for state prison inmates, has created a shortage of mental health technicians for the county’s health department.
The many county employees, who joined the ranks of state employees, enjoyed increases to their salaries from $41,000 to $50,000 a year to $56,000 to $65,000.
So far, the county’s Behavioral Health Services facility has lost about one-fifth of its psychiatric technicians to the state’s California Health Care Facility, according to a report by Recordnet.com. The state facility is designed to provide services to more than 1,700 sick or mentally ill state inmates.
Plans to build the state facility began when federal judges found the health care provided to state prisoners was inadequate and therefore unconstitutional. However, the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce opposed the construction of the Health Care Facility and filed a lawsuit to stop the planned construction. To settle the dispute, state officials arranged for money to improve local infrastructure, incentives to hire local residents during construction and an effort to get permanent jobs.
There was also a secured unit constructed at San Joaquin General Hospital to handle state inmate patients. However, county officials complained there was not enough time for their local college to train enough technicians to prevent a shortage of workers for the county health department.
“It’s going to take a while to catch up…but I think it will.”
Referring to getting enough trained technicians to work at the county health department, Ken Cohen, Director of Health Services said, “It’s going to take a while to catch up…but I think it will.”
