Bitter Pill : 400 Call Clinic Closings Wrong Prescription for Budget Ills

Speakers at a rally in Carson on Thursday predicted disastrous consequences for South Bay communities if the county Department of Mental Health closes three area clinics to save money.

“Thousands of mentally ill people will be deprived of vitally needed medication and therapy,” said Dr. Mark Ragins, a staff psychiatrist at the Coastal Community Mental Health Center, where about 400 people demonstrated.

Ragins said about 90% of the 250 patients under his care have attempted suicide in the past, and many of them could be expected to again try to take their lives if their support is cut off. Others may take to the streets, he said, where they could pose a problem for law enforcement and other public agencies.

$1-Million Budget

The Carson center was scheduled to close Aug. 22, and facilities in San Pedro and Wilmington were to shut down Monday as part of a county plan to offset an $18-million budget shortfall. The Carson center costs about $1 million a year to operate.

Countywide, four other clinics would be closed and operations at seven others, including outpatient services at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, would be reduced by the end of this month. However, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge later Thursday blocked the planned closures and cutbacks until Aug. 29, when a hearing will be held on whether the services should be fully maintained.

The Carson rally, organized by Los Angeles Advocates for Mental Health, drew a heavy turnout from the media. Patients and members of their families told of the importance of the center in controlling mental illness.

‘A Disaster’

“It means the whole world to us,” said Sylvia Hildreth, whose 21-year-old son is one of about 750 adults and children treated at the center. “I just don’t know what would happen if (he) couldn’t come here for support, but I fear it would be a disaster.”

Mary Castillo, of San Pedro, said her 26-year-old son, diagnosed as schizophrenic, has been restored to nearly normal living as a result of treatments at the clinic.

“It’s beyond me why they would close a place that is doing such wonderful things in people’s lives,” she said. “The staff here has helped us survive emergencies when even the police wouldn’t come out.”

‘Back to Reality’

A Gardena secretary, who declined to give her name, said she had a normal life until 1983, when she became afflicted with schizophrenia. “I started coming here the next year, and the medication and therapy brought me back to reality,” she said. “But I have to continue regular treatments to stay on that course.”

Eugene Levitt, a staff psychologist, said that before the founding of the Carson center in 1980, “a lot of mentally disturbed people out there were overlooked. Closing these facilities completely ignores the extent of the problem in these South Bay communities.”

Joel Foxman, the Carson center’s director, said that closing the three South Bay facilities would affect 25 area communities by disrupting treatment for as many as 4,000 people with severe mental illness.

Patients sent to Long Beach clinics or Harbor-UCLA will have “to wait for days in already overloaded facilities and many of these people are without any means of transportation,” Foxman said.