Fontana Herald News
By Hector Gonzalez
May 27, 2026
Growing up, I wasn’t aware of psychiatric care. My parents immigrated from Mexico and instilled in me the importance of discipline and dignity.
My dad has always been a hard worker. He is the kind of man who believes that if you’re going to do something, you do it right and you do it with everything you have. Similarly, my mom taught us the importance of being present — even in the hardest moments.
Those lessons became my foundation, long before I ever stepped into a psychiatric hospital as a mental health technician, and then, in 2011, a milieu specialist.
At its core, this work is about empathy. It’s about asking yourself: “If this were me, how would I want to be cared for?”
That’s the heart of what we do, but it’s not always apparent to those on the outside.
As conversations grow around possible changes to staffing requirements in California’s psychiatric hospitals, I find myself thinking about how this would affect those we care for, especially during the moments that don’t show up on charts or schedules.
Of course, doctors and nurses are essential. They diagnose, they prescribe, they treat the medical side of mental illness. But they don’t always have the capacity to spend hours with patients through long stretches of fear, confusion, or loneliness.
We are the middle ground — the bridge between a patient and our medical team. We see the small changes and the subtle shifts that tell us someone is struggling. We know their stories because they trust us enough to tell them, and we relay that information to nurses and doctors so they can do their jobs more effectively.
When a patient becomes aggressive, we step in to help deescalate. When someone is spiraling, we talk them down. When someone feels hopeless, we sit with them until they feel safe again.
When I was first starting out, a mentor of mine unknowingly reinforced the lessons instilled in me – how critical it is to treat our patients not as patients, but as humans. Two years ago, he had a sudden heart attack and passed away. Losing him felt like losing a family member.
My dad, a man who rarely shows emotion, reached out and told me that if I needed to cry, he was there. I realized how deeply supported I was by my family and community. Then I thought about my patients.
Many of them don’t have that support. Many of them don’t have anyone to call, anyone to cry to, anyone to tell them they matter. We are the ones who show up for them when no one else does.
These proposed regulations not only feel like a step backward, but they also feel like they were created by people who have never spent a day in a psychiatric unit. These roles exist for a reason, thoughtfully put in place from lived experience within psychiatric care. If policymakers want to understand what we do, I invite them to spend a day with me. See what my job actually looks like, not what they assume it is.
This work is hard. It requires people who can show up, stay grounded, and give compassion even on the hardest days. Not everyone can do it. But those who can, those of us who choose this work every day, make psychiatric hospitals safer, calmer and supportive high-quality treatment that helps patients thrive.
California should preserve the people who provide that level of care and compassion, not cut them out of the picture.