‘Mental Health Sham’ in State

This is to congratulate you for your editorial (April 10), “Mental Health Sham.” As someone who frequently disagrees with your editorials, I confess that this time you are right on target.

The mental health profession has the capability of treating violent and potentially violent patients, providing that such patients stay in the hospital the minimum time to adjust the medication to a therapeutic level. This required time is much longer than the initial 72-hour hold the law allows.

Under the present rule, a court hearing is required beyond the initial hold. Two mental health professionals are required to sign this second hold, one of them must be a psychiatrist. This professional evaluation is frequently overturned by a well-intentioned court-appointed referee--a lawyer whose education and training and whose license are not in the field of mental health.

The most important decision in mental health is the evaluation of a potentially violent patient (to himself or to others) who is released to the streets.

It is like after spending billions of dollars to provide an army with modern weapons, the tactical decision in the battlefield is given to a person lacking military training!

We are fighting a “War Against Violence,” and we are losing the war!

TONY PEREZ

Glendale

Perez is a psychiatric social worker with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.