Cut the Fat, Not Muscle

After reading that Camarillo State Hospital is planning to partially offset an anticipated $2-million budget shortfall by cutting $200,000 in operating costs and by not hiring 30 new psychiatric technicians (“Hospital Plans to Cut Psychiatric Staff” Dec. 29), I am left deeply confused.

Why such drastic steps in the direction of psychiatric technicians, who are the major direct-care providers in the California state hospital system? Why not anybody else?

The cutting of fat should start with the parts engulfed by fat, i.e. administration, not by cutting in the muscle and in the heart, i.e. psychiatric technicians. Patient care in California mental institutions--so overly shortchanged--demands it, and so does our sense of fairness, justice and common sense.

ADOLPH DONINS

Oxnard