Lack of Help for Mentally Ill

Your article (Oct. 17) told a sad but too often repeated story about the status of medical care in California. I refer to the story of the son of a woman allegedly killed by his sister who has been diagnosed as suffering from a severe neurological disease of the brain identified as schizophrenia. Brian Jacobs made a trip to Sacramento to discuss the death of his mother with a joint committee of the Legislature.

His major complaint was that he had tried many times to obtain treatment for his sister, but had come up against the mental-health system of California that did not give her the treatment warranted by her condition.

In my mail on Oct. 17, I received a copy of Health Letter, edited by Sidney M. Wolfe, MD, for the Public Citizen Health Research Group. In this issue was a rating of state programs for the seriously mentally ill. California, the largest in population and one of the richest states, ranks only 31st. Worse than that, California was characterized as “moving backwards.”

WILLIAM H. DAVIS, MD, Chairman , Research Committee, California Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Seal Beach