FAMILIES PERSIST IN FIGHT; 23 ACRES OF CAMARILLO CAMPUS SOUGHT FOR PATIENTS.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

The families of former patients at Camarillo State Hospital will continue their efforts to get a corner of the 650-acre campus set aside as a mental-health treatment center, their lawyer vowed Monday.

Attorney Ron Gold, who is fighting the hospital's June 30 closure, said his clients will push to make the state reserve 23 acres - property now being considered for a new California State University campus - for the treatment of patients from Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

County Supervisor John Flynn has proposed leasing the 23-acre site for $1 a year, and using the facilities for a county-run treatment center for mentally and developmentally disabled patients.

``We're not bringing litigation as a ploy or for political reasons,'' Gold said. ``We're doing it to ensure quality care for the patients. We don't believe the state can do that, so the best thing they can do is bring (patients) back to Camarillo.''

Gold laid out his plans after a hearing in which he asked the court to expand its oversight of the care that patients are receiving since their transfer from the 61-year-old hospital.

The hospital is formally scheduled to close two weeks from today, although the last of the 600 patients were transferred out earlier this month. Families of the patients have been fighting to keep the facility open - not only because of the care offered, but because the hospital's proximity allows them to visit more often.

During Monday's hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne was set to hear whether state officials had ensured that four specific patients receive comparable care at their new treatment facilities.

But without addressing the condition of the four patients, Gold asked Wayne to expand oversight to more patients. She refused to take up the issue, but set another hearing for June 30.

Deputy Attorney General Richard Waldow said the state had complied with the judge's order by reviewing the four patients' treatment plans, minimizing any transfer trauma and addressing relatives' concerns.

Waldow said he expected Monday's hearing to mark the end of the plaintiffs' suit since relatives had signed documents allowing the transfers to proceed.

``They signed an agreement with the judge to transfer these patients. It resolves the issue of whether the plaintiffs are contesting the transfers they signed off on,'' he said.

But Gold said he plans to monitor the condition of those four patients over the next two weeks and document any instance in which they aren't getting care on par with that received at Camarillo. Gold said he then might seek another court order spelling out precisely what he believes the state departments of Mental Health and Developmental Services should do to ensure all former Camarillo patients get comparable care.

Gold believes this added burden may be enough to force state officials, busy planning a new college, to cave in and free up the 23 acres and its buildings so some patients can return to the shuttered hospital.

It was with these goals in mind, Gold said, that he focused on more than four patients Monday by asking the judge to appoint an independent ``special master'' to monitor the conditions of all transferred patients.

The judge said she would take up that request separately from the issues surrounding the four patients.