Since Coalinga State Hospital ("CSH") first opened its door in September of 2005, the medical care has been so deplorable that the patients often commented to each other, "If you really get sick here, you're going to die!"

The large sign that sits at the entrance to the Department of Mental Health's newest 388 million dollar state of the art hospital says:

COALINGA STATE HOSPITAL 
NO EMERGENCY SERVICES AVAILABLE

Although the Department of Mental Health ("DMH") will claim what that this sign really means is there is no emergency services for the general public. The reality is - there are no emergency services for anybody - the public, the patients housed at the hospital, or staff.

This became abundantly clear on Thursday, November 8, 2007, when patient Francisco "Frank" Valadao, age 45, died while lying on the floor of the hospital's gymnasium as hospital staff looked on and did nothing.

Frank collapsed while playing basketball. We may never know whether or not he could have been saved. What we do know is that hospital staff made no attempt to do so. The on duty psychiatric technicians, who sat at a kiosk less than twenty feet from where Frank was lying on the floor unconscious, did not appear to know what to do. They later claimed to have called the emergency response telephone number, 7119, as spelled out in the nursing directives, but then sat back helplessly as Frank lay dying on the floor.

Although each and every hospital employee carries an electronic personal alarm device. Why this device was not set-off goes unexplained. Staff does not normally hesitate to trigger an alarm through this system - they go off constantly day-and-night.

As hospital staff sat doing nothing, other patients began banging on the locked back door of the Gym that exits to the hospital's main court yard. They managed to get the attention of patients on the court yard, who fetched a hospital police officer, who finally triggered an alarm and called for help over his radio.

In the mean time, other patients began CPR on Frank as staff continued to sit by doing nothing.

One of the first medical staff to arrive at the scene was Registered Nurse Kathy Bryant. Witnesses overheard her saying, "I'm not going to put my mouth on the man's mouth." Other staff who were not at the scene later stated that there is a defibrillator behind one of the doors approximately 30 feet from the scene of the incident. Why didn't staff use it? We have all been trained to use these defibrillators, and where they are located in the hospital.

After receiving instructions via telephone, a staff member who was assisting Nurse Bryant ordered the patient administering CPR to stop CPR, and then ordered all patients out of the Gym. The patients were highly upset that patient administered CPR was ordered stopped without staff taking over and continuing CPR.

Approximately ten minutes after CPR had been ordered stopped, a "crash cart" arrived on the scene. However, the crash cart was ill equipped. It did not have a defibrillator on board. A staff member was then sent elsewhere to fetch a defibrillator, and again, no one opened the door in the Gym to retrieve the defibrillator kept there for this very type of emergency.

Eventually, Frank was loaded onto the crash cart and transported to the hospital's medical unit. During this transport, a psychiatric technician again started CPR, however, after such a long delay, this was too little too late. It appeared to take well over fifteen minutes before an ambulance was called. Staff is not talking, thus nobody knows the exact timing, and nobody knows for sure if and when a doctor was ever called.

Frank Valadao, a very popular patient at the hospital died. The question remains, could Frank have been saved? Some other staff members, ones not involved in this incident, want this question answered. They want to know because although it was a patient who died this time, it could have just as easily been a staff member. There is real basis for concern by staff, as earlier this year staff member Bill Ellis, a Behavior Specialist, had a heart attack at CSH and was forced to drive himself to different hospital to receive attention.

In this "state of the art" hospital that houses approximately 750 men, there is no medical doctor on grounds. The average age of the patients at Coalinga State Hospital is somewhere between 50 and 60 years old. Yet, there is no doctor on grounds. The doctor on call is at least one hour away.