Camarillo Hospital Serves All of Society

* The real decision for the citizens of Camarillo is whether or not we should sit idly by while a misguided governor attempts to close Camarillo State Hospital.

In our community, there has been an understandable but unfortunate reaction toward allowing certain categorized types such as “sexual predators” to be treated there. But must we succumb to pessimism and paranoid hysteria? Rather, we should face the naked truth--that these “predators” are very sick people. The only hope for them, and us, is that they be forced into a very strict regimen of treatment, so that they might not return to a community unrehabilitated only to repeat the same actions which we all find so reprehensible.

The state hospital at Camarillo has been extremely successful in attending to the mentally ill and the handicapped. It has been possible for many of these people to reenter society as happy and productive individuals. Let us continue in this noble tradition and restore the full functioning of the hospital, so that it can continue to serve its patients--as well as the larger community of which we are all a small part.

NORMAN E. BAUER

Camarillo