Neglect of Mentally Ill

* Re the Broken Contract series, Nov. 21-23: I am very close to someone with schizo-affective disorder. Although I have seen her go through horrible times, she is one of the luckier ones. She has Medi-Cal, a caring treatment team and people who love and care about her. Without these things she might be one of the “lost causes” you have written about. Hospitalization is not always a necessity; often it can be detrimental. Localized programs, if managed properly, can work.

Your stories have pointed out that most mentally ill people are nonviolent and account for a very small percentage of violent crime. Your coverage is helping to show the mentally ill as human beings worthy of society’s care and concern.

BARBARA DELLAMARIE

Burbank

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“A Tortuous Path for the Mentally Ill” (Nov. 21) emphasizes why more must be done to ensure that persons with mental disabilities are not treated like criminals and have an opportunity to live as independently as possible. Surely no one would allow persons with medical illnesses to be similarly treated by law enforcement. Likewise, no one would encourage the institutionalization of functioning persons with medical disabilities.

More educated law enforcement and more supported housing are needed, so that persons with mental illness do not have to be unnecessarily incarcerated or institutionalized.

GLENDA LOW

Projects Director

Shelter Partnership Inc.

Los Angeles

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Your Nov. 22 article did a wonderful job of capturing the true horror of mental illness and societal neglect. Reading about how patients fall “into a psychotic abyss--hearing voices, wandering the streets, landing again in locked wards and jails,” with many dying the most inhumane of deaths, is all deja vu for me. My brother has passed through every nightmarish experience you describe, and then some, such as fellow patients urinating on his food, police beating him on the street and thugs breaking nearly every bone of his body with a ball bat. Only those who’ve cried and agonized over the loss of a loved one to the ravages of mental illness can begin to divine it all. Nothing can come close to mental illness in effectively demonstrating how uncivilized our society remains.

DAVID FREDERICKS

Huntington Beach

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I think the problem of poor treatment for the mentally ill in California and other states can be helped if the federal government takes responsibility for mentally ill Vietnam veterans. I think the standards for a Vietnam veteran to prove that his mental problems were caused by his participation in the Vietnam War are too stringent. I make this statement because of my personal involvement with such matters.

CARL G. MUELLER

Hesperia