Mental Health System Remains Unreformed
Re “Poor Care Reported at Mental Facility,” Feb. 25: I got my start practicing law in Los Angeles 28 years ago as a volunteer attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union by suing the state over deplorable conditions at Metropolitan State Hospital. Our three lawsuits brought the introduction of television cameras into L.A. Superior Court as the survivors of three mental patients killed as a result of staff and management misconduct sought a full accounting of the events leading up to the deaths of their loved ones.
How sad it is that so many years later the same problems regarding Metropolitan State Hospital and the mental health system in which it operates have not changed. Medications are still routinely mis-prescribed and violence against patients is still the norm. It cries out for reform, and Sacramento is the only place it can come from without resorting to the courts yet again.
Richard M. Walden
Los Angeles
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