7 former patients allege sexual abuse at Sacramento psychiatric hospital
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- Seven former minors allege sexual abuse by eight Sierra Vista Hospital staffers.
- Lawsuit accuses hospital and parent UHS of negligence and civil rights violations.
- Plaintiffs claim facility concealed misconduct and failed to protect vulnerable patients.
Seven former psychiatric patients filed a lawsuit Friday in Sacramento Superior Court, alleging that eight staffers at Sierra Vista Hospital in Sacramento sexually abused them when they were minors.
Now adults, the plaintiffs said in their court filing that management on all levels of the company ignored warning signs and concealed past employee misconduct from them and their parents or guardians.
The plaintiffs, who used pseudonyms to protect their identities, said they received inpatient psychiatric care for serious mental or behavioral health challenges when they were subjected to sexual harassment or sexual battery by hospital employees.
Among the allegations: a staffer watched one patient shower; a number of the eight staffers touched patients’ intimate body areas without consent for sexual gratification; and at least one staffer made sexual comments to a plaintiff. The lawsuit also accused the companies of failing to adequately hire, train and supervise staff.
The complaint lists eight unnamed staff members as well as Sierra Vista Hospital, the BHC Sierra Vista Hospital subsidiary and corporate parent Universal Health Services (UHS of Delaware, Inc.) as defendants.
Sierra Vista Hospital is located at 8001 Bruceville Road in Sacramento’s Valley Hi / North Laguna neighborhood, just southeast of the Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center campus.
Officials at Universal Health Services and Sierra Vista Hospital did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
In total, the plaintiffs made 13 legal claims including multiple complaints of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They said the companies violated several California civil rights laws intended to prevent violence based on gender and guarantee equal access to business services. And they claimed the companies engaged in fraud and unfair business practices by misrepresenting the hospital as a safe, therapeutic environment.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys said in the civil lawsuit that the abuse was part of a broader “culture of abuse” at UHS facilities nationwide, where vulnerable children were not protected from predatory staff. They said hospital and company officials were legally required to report suspected abuse to law enforcement and remove employees accused of misconduct, but they did not do so.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages for the lasting emotional, psychological and economic harm they say they have suffered.
