[October 23, 2014]

Napa State Hospital Employees Remember Slain Psychiatric Technician Donna Gross

Employees, patient advocates and concerned community members gathered at Napa State Hospital this afternoon to remember NSH Psychiatric Technician on the fourth anniversary of her death.

Gross was murdered on Napa State Hospital grounds on the dark, rainy evening of Oct. 23, 2010, by patient Jess Willard Massey. Massey was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years to life in state prison for the crime.

Event attendees - many wearing black in solemn remembrance - laid flowers before photo memorials of Gross while sharing stories of their own injuries. Employees at California's four other state hospitals also wore black in solidarity with their Napa State Hospital coworkers.

Four years after Gross' death, employees say welcome changes are taking hold in the state's hospitals for Californians with mental illnesses. A new personal-alarm system has been deployed and NSH at other state hospitals, replacing the antiquated system that did not work outdoors where Gross was killed. Grounds-patrol teams - modeled after Patton (News - Alert) State Hospital's 20-year-old first-response group - now are active throughout Napa and Metropolitan State Hospitals' acres of fenced yards, offering increased security for patients and workers alike. Napa has increased security with a new police substation that has dramatically ncreased officers' response times. And on September 28, California Governor Jerry Brown signed four urgently needed bills into law:

• Assembly Bill 1340 - This bill authored by Asm. Katcho Achadjian will create enhanced-treatment programs to house and assist state-hospital patients with the most aggressive and dangerous behaviors. Established at Atascadero, Coalinga, Napa and Patton State Hospitals, the residences will feature intensive staffing, programs and treatments to help this high-risk population, all while upholding patients' rights through rigorous hearing and appeal processes.
• Assembly Bill 1960 - Authored by Asm. Henry Perea, this bill will allow California state-hospital law-enforcement and licensed mental-health personnel to access and review criminal-history information for patients in these facilities' care, allowing mental-health professionals to better gear programs and services toward patients' individual behavioral needs.
• Assembly Bill 2186 -- This legislation by Asm. Bonnie Lowenthal allows medication orders to follow state-hospital patients wherever they go, creating more consistent care regardless of facility transfers.
• Assembly Bill 2625 -- Also authored by Asm. Achadjian, this bill requires that, if the California Department of State Hospitals determines patients referred to its state hospitals are unlikely to regain sanity, reports must be submitted back to the courts, which then are charged with swiftly finding appropriate mental-health care and settings for the individuals.

But even with these improvements, event participants said more progress must be made. Another bill, Assembly Bill 2144 by Napa-area Asm. Mariko Yamada, failed to reach the governor's desk due to legislators' cost concerns. The bill would have increased state hospitals' minimum staff-to-patient ratios: a major direct-care necessity that has not changed in decades, even though 92 percent of state-hospital patients currently come from the criminal-justice system.

"These positive advancements in safety and advocacy for appropriate treatment are a direct result of Donna having died here on our grounds," said NSH psychiatric technician Mike Jarschke, who also is the Napa Chapter vice president of the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians and a member of the statewide Safety Now Coalition of state-hospital employees. "We pledge to continue our work in her memory to make our state hospitals safer for everyone."

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