John George Psychiatric Pavilion

This hospital and unfortunately many other’s in California should be ashamed considering the funds our State has. Mental Health Care is worse than it was prior the Reagan Years. The locked facilities are like 3^rd world prisons. A revolving door because they don’t have the staff, compassion, or funds to deal with all the complex issues of mental illness. The mentally ill can have decent lives if given the chance, respect, love, and direction. This place should be held accountable for all the patient neglect.

I would give this place NO STARS if it were allowed.
This is not a place for anyone that you love.
Once entered, it is as if you are imprisoned-​as you have no recourse, and are at the mercy of incompetent, rude, insensitive, muscle head jerks.
I have a nephew (with limited physical abilities are kidney problems. He was denied his Meds (that I brought over personally upon a staff member request he said that they must use there pharmacy; which did not have the Meds and could not obtain them). However, they had plenty of Meds to sedate him beyond recognition. HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE.
The super and staff doctors are a piece of work that was not assembled correctly– and have been there far too long.
Please do not use this place as an option. It should be shut down.
AND THE STAFF SHOULD BE ASHAM AND UNEMPLOYED!

Worst customer service ever, I try to call in for help but those lady are very rude and one of them hang up on me 3 times after hearing my question!

Had a friend go there who definitely needed help thought she would get it but she didn’t. They ship everyone out as a drug addict or homeless person not looking for what is deeper. Easier just to get people out of there, I guess a lot of bi polar or manic depressives will keep medicating themselves or get hurt on the streets until they get a real mental hospital or a real doctor that diagnosis’ them. How sad is that the ones that are in desperate need of help never get help. Maybe they shouldn’t call it a Psychiatric Pavilion anymore? Maybe they just are an urgent care, or holding room how pathetic is that. We wonder why there are a lot of mentally ill people walking around, this is why, they won’t get help here. Another waste of money.

This facility offers the cadillac of 5150 experiences for the SF Bay area. They have a large group tv and a smaller one, both with DVD players and recent movie titles when I was there at least. Meals are buffet-​style in a nice cafeteria, a strong contrast from the prison food-​esque trays offered at many other psych facilities (St Helena in Vallejo also has buffet meal, but is less nice). During off meal hours there is a community fridge with milks, fruit, yoghurt, and juice boxes.
I got the sense that the staff genuinely cared about the patients, a sense that is a welcome rarity in the currently cynical and seemingly oblivious healthcare system. I’ve worked in treatment and as a patient, so my bias is at least tempered. Treatment always seemed to be an exercise in minimizing liability rather than acting as a knowledge resource to help shape & accomplish patient goals. The frequent use of «crazy» from healthcare professionals not as a generic diagnosis but as a general pejorative akin to how «gay» has been used demonstrates the subtle insensitivities present in traditional psychiatric facilities.
With all this negative experience I’m happy to find a place like John George that makes efforts to socialize patients and even got me, in my most vulnerably self-​conscious state, to get involved with their in-​facility group karaōke event and sing a Jason Mraz song. Tangentially, I’m also glad that the NIMH will be gradually moving away from the label-​centric forthcoming DSM-​V iteration, and moving increasingly toward biomarker-​based diagnoses and treatments.