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County should appropriate
jail psychological well being coverage
Final Thursday, dozens of individuals in Santa Rita Jail spoke to Choose Nathanael Cousins in a Zoom listening to, telling in regards to the lack of take care of the mentally unwell there, and saying individuals’s complaints are ignored and punished with retaliation. Though the settlement within the lawsuit this listening to is about is meant to enhance situations within the jail, the audio system opposed the settlement, as a result of they don’t belief the Alameda County Sheriff’s Workplace to obey the foundations or to deal with psychological sickness.
Maybe 42% of Santa Rita inmates are mentally unwell. A lot of our members of the family are in jail awaiting trial or remedy due to the dearth of area in precise psychological hospitals.
The county made a mistake in Might 2020 when it allotted $318 million it didn’t have, largely to pay for tons of of latest deputies to cope with psychological sickness within the jail. It’s time to reverse that mistake.
Alison Monroe
Oakland
State ought to develop
faculty well being services
Re. “Piedmont Excessive’s Wellness Middle helps help, information college students,” Jan. 25:
Thanks to your story in regards to the Piedmont Excessive College Wellness Middle. Wellness Facilities are critically necessary proper now and California ought to direct sources to open one at each faculty, particularly these with the very best well being and schooling inequities.
Colleges can go one step additional by providing complete school-based well being facilities (SBHCs) just like the one in Oakland alluded to within the article. SBHCs present a broader array of companies, together with main care, vaccinations, dental and even imaginative and prescient care, whereas additionally supporting constructive youth improvement. SBHCs are accessible to all college students and join them to a broader community of well being care companies.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature have supported many sizable initiatives for youngster and adolescent well being, psychological well being and colleges. Our state’s file funds surplus may very well be directed to fund each the capital and ongoing prices of SBHCs. Now's the time to embrace complete wrap-around well being take care of all college students.
Tracy Mendez
Government Director, California College-Based mostly Well being Alliance
Oakland
Christians unfairly
tagged as anti-Semitic
I completely cherished the primary two paragraphs of Rev. Will McGarvey’s letter from Jan. 25. (“All faiths should stand towards antisemitism,” Web page A6) However the third paragraph unfairly focused conservative Christians.
Anti-Semitic assaults are nearly by no means completed by individuals calling themselves Christians and who're lively members or attendees of any church. It is because no legit church would welcome or help individuals who would do or advocate this. And the identical could be true of anybody who would assault or advocate attacking every other group (different races or ethnicities, LGBTQ individuals, individuals of different faiths).
If it got here to gentle that such an individual was a part of my church congregation (or nearly each one that I do know) or eager to be such, they'd be requested to go away generally. (Sadly, although, there are nonetheless a number of teams calling themselves “Christian” who could be exceptions, together with teams calling themselves “Muslim”.)
Christopher Andrus
Dublin
‘Get together of no’ positive
to hinder court docket decide
Re. “Biden: ‘Lengthy overdue’ decide of Black girl on approach,” Web page A4, Jan. 28:
As Bette Davis stated in “All About Eve,” “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy experience.” I'm taking bets that the social gathering of no, will do every thing to delay the alternative of the retiring U.S. Supreme Court docket justice.
Sen. Mitch McConnell is taking out his bag of tips (“McConnell warns towards ‘radical’ court docket decide,” Web page A4, Jan. 28), and the court docket jester Donald Trump will throw gasoline on the hearth. Any takers?
Maryann Sheridan
Walnut Creek
Public well being is actually
authorities’s enterprise
Just lately we’ve seen protests towards masks and vaccine mandates with the protesters claiming that their well being is their enterprise and that the federal government doesn’t have the appropriate to inform individuals tips on how to shield their very own well being.
Properly, the federal government doesn't inform individuals what to do about their very own well being. The federal government doesn't inform individuals with most cancers that they need to get chemo, doesn’t inform individuals with Parkinson’s that they should get remedy, doesn’t inform anybody with noncontagious ailments what they need to do.
Nevertheless, when individuals have severe contagious ailments, then the federal government has not solely a proper to inform individuals to take motion but it surely has an absolute obligation to take action. It doesn’t matter to anybody the way you deal with your self, however if in case you have a illness which you'll unfold to others, then it turns into everybody’s enterprise, together with the federal government’s.
Shelly Rosenblum
Walnut Creek