Heritage Oaks Hospital - Sacramento, California

Christie Marie

Heritage has been a gift and a lifesaver for me. The clinicians, staff and NPs who assisted me were professional, incredibly kind, and extremely knowledgeable. The coping skills and education, combined with the right medication, allowed me to recover and have the support I needed to regain my mental and physical health. I would recommend the program highly and would return here without hesitation. I deeply grateful for the care I've received here.

Lee Eng

My review is based on the reality of the circumstances. This facility is the initial short term stop. It is a public facility that does not have the budget with highly stressed overworked staff. Yet this is the opputunity to plan longer term care for your loved ones. Talk with the Doctors Nurses and Social workers to assist in planning. Make sure you hustle it to prepare for whatever future care is needed when your family members leave. I saw a loy of staff working very hard in a jam packed hustle environment.

Roxanne R.M.

Horrible!!! The phone rings and rings nobody ever answers . I asked to speak to the charge nurse it would roll over to the voice mail . Nobody ever returned the call. I spoke briefly to a social work I could hear from her voice that she was from an African American decent . This lady’s tone of voice was irritable and had a huge attitude as if I were taking money away from her paycheck . The two weeks that my son was there I only got to speak to the social worker from hell once. Social worker should be a corrections officer! The elderly nurse who had a southern accent was the worst she never relayed messages . My son was discharged with zero meds . Horrible staff and this says a lot about the management. Someone needs to clean up house !

Gena Rich

DONT SEND YOUR LOVED ONES TO HERITAGE OAKS!!! Our family had the most awful experience with this hospital. They tried to hold my husband much longer than was necessary and were pushing drugs on him without even a full evaluation of what was necessary. He had people asking him why he was even there and our family tried to communicate to both Dr Hilty and the social worker Cynthia that he was not a danger to himself or anyone else and that the best place for him to recover from his stress was at home. I left multiple messages and NEVER received a call once from any dr and the social worker did not respond to our request until it was convenient for her. Dr Hilty said he could have been released Friday but since he was gone “speaking somewhere and not answering his phone” my husband had to stay 3 more nights until he was back. We ended up having to get a patient advocate involved and he was the only person who had our back. Michael met with my husband and was angry for us that he was there when he shouldn’t be. This place is like a dirty jail that pushes drugs and wants peoples money. I swear they want to make people crazy so they stay here. I feel bad for patients that don’t have a family to fight for them. BEWARE

Bill Van Pelt

The (overworked) staff and variety of patients made my stay a good one. I made many friends and was, staff-wise, found of David, Elizabeth, and Mia. I, also, learned watercolor painting. Thanks 😊 🫂 🙏

milo valentine

I've been to other inpatient mental health facilities, and knowing your worth in a place like this will tear your soul apart. Everyone here experienced extreme dehumanization from staff members, and I personally had to de-escalate and solve problems for other patients because the nurses refused to do their jobs properly and would just degrade patients for being problematic. That, in particular, seems to be the idea here; make your patients feel worse than they did before, push them to the point of breakdown, demonize them for having said breakdown, and pump them full of medication.

They never quiet down, either. At night, when all of the patients are trying to sleep, the nurses stay in the hallway and speak so loud, so constantly, that there is no chance for a peaceful rest. The first night I was here I could not sleep, and I was already doing poorly, as I was here, and the nurses were no help. They did nothing to soothe me. They talked amongst themselves and ignored me when I had a panic attack, curled up on the floor directly in front of them. I mean it when I say ignored to the fullest power of the word- not a single word was spoken to me. I had to stop myself from having my panic attack, snapping out of it because I felt embarrassed to be ignored by those who were employed to care for me.

On another occasion, I had a panic attack, and I couldn't calm down. Apparently I'd been indisposed for 40 minutes, or so the nurses said. During this event I had nurses trying to regulate me, as I was in the lobby and they were nervous (lol) but I was so horrified I could not move, due to the circumstance of my doctor refusing to communicate with me about a possible discharge.

I couldn't handle being here, and as I panicked, the nurses specifically disobeyed the notes I had filled out upon my admittance- I had written not to touch me when I'm feeling like this, and they wouldn't get their hands off me. Because I couldn't calm down, they eventually told me I was "wasting their time." Then, because I didn't want to take the medication they had proffered to calm me, one of the nurses told me I had no choice- that if I didn't take the medication willingly, they would use a syringe to inject it into me against my will. I wasn't being violent, to myself or anyone else, I was simply panicking. That's how they chose to handle it.

Those were my most extreme negative circumstances, but bear in mind, nothing here was positive. Everyone is inept and undertrained, from nurses to presenting staff for group therapy. Speaking of therapy, if that's what you or your loved ones are looking for, good luck getting it here. This facility doesn't have therapists on staff who will sit down and talk with you, at least in my experience. I was here for nearly a week and never had anything resembling one on one therapy. I was only able to speak with my psychiatrist twice in intervals shorter than 10 minutes each time. The closest thing present is the group therapy, which is both pithy and required, even if you aren't getting anything out of it because the staff hosting is generally clueless. During the last session I attended, the 'professional' hosting the session implied babies couldn't have schizophrenia, and when I pointed out the discrepancies in his claim, he referred only to the possibility of "crack babies." He used that phrase.

I was put here on an involuntary hold because it was deemed I needed intensive therapy to help me work through my suicidality. I didn't get anything resembling that here. They put me on a second involuntary hold, and I had to have a hearing, judge and all, to be released when I did. She ruled in my favor before my patient advocate even testified, that's how clear it was I shouldn't have been there, but staff here doesn't care. Once you don that hospital gown, you're less than human.

As a final note, this place is also terrible at handling transgender patients. My birth name was everywhere and I was consistently misgendered by staff. They acted like it was a total hassle to take my name off my door when I requested it.

Jayy Curiel

I was in here for about 6 days, I didn't self admit I was brought here by a hospital against my will because I had a psychosis episode, I snapped out of it my 2nd day in there and I was in a pod with literally crazy people. The food they served was REALLY good and the staff was nice, but being locked up with crazy people screaming and yelling nonsense 24/7 suuuckked. When my social worker said I can finally be released I was so happy. I give this place a 2 out of 5 star honestly

Zachaury D

Worst Mental Facility I’ve been too. All the nurses and staff there was horrible. Treated all of us like prisoners. We weren’t even allowed outside and they fed us garbage. Sticking a bunch of teenagers with issues isn’t a very good idea and it was a hell hole. They didn’t even care and gave us booty juice any chance they got. By far the worst experience out of all the facilities I’ve been too. DO NOT GO HERE IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE.