Budget Cuts in State Programs

I applaud the decision of California’s 567 hospitals to file suit against the Department of Health Services (“567 Hospitals Sue State,” Part A, Aug. 10) for the agency’s failure to adequately compensate hospitals for treatment of indigent Californians. It’s about time the Deukmejian Administration was brought to task for its failure to serve all Californians, not just those who are moneyed and influential.

Not only has Gov. Deukmejian’s budgetary policy detrimentally impacted the maintenance of general hospital services through the closure of trauma centers and emergency rooms throughout the state, but less than five days before the hospitals filed suit, The Times reported that Los Angeles County’s mental-health system was on the brink of self-destruction because of massive mental-health cuts in the new budget, which threw a rapidly deteriorating system into a nearly catastrophic state (Aug. 5). All at a time when Deukmejian admits to maintaining a $1.3- billion reserve for “emergencies.”

I wonder what qualifies as an “emergency” to George Deukmejian? Apparently severely mentally ill patients who have to sit two and three days in a waiting room for treatment do not qualify. Nor does the general public’s inability to receive proper treatment for severe injury accidents because there are no open trauma centers within 50 miles of an accident. The list of non-qualifiers is endless.

Deukmejian’s real “emergency” is that he wants to leave the governorship with a budget surplus (courtesy of the $1.3 billion “emergency” reserve) so that he can point to it when he runs for some higher office and claim he left the state in a better position than when he came to it.

DEBORAH BLAIR PORTER

Redondo Beach