ACCESS TO NEWS/WORLD EVENTS/TELEVISION

  • Outrageously, most patients are still being forced into communal television rooms to see what is going on in this world during the COVID-19 pandemic; DSH, unlike CDCR denies patients access to individual television reception in a world where newspapers have disappeared or dwindled to 3 or 4 pages per section;
  • In common TV rooms with only one or two televisions, on units with up to fifty patients, most patients no longer have any idea what is going on in the world they are purportedly being treated to return to;
  • Patients are not even allowed direct/supervised internet access to read the latest news, or view a CNN feed;
  • Two-thirds of Coalinga State Hospital are unable to get a TV signal even if they put a digital antenna in the window. The Director of State Hospitals has refused to give patients TV reception even though all treatment programs costing millions of dollars were terminated 6 months ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic and 1,300 patients have been confined to their units.