Re: “” Jan. 18 news story.
Mental patients are sometimes at risk of attempting suicide. They may attempt it in many different ways: gun, gas, poison, jumping from a high place. These attempts usually occur in some residential, workplace or public setting. When a person’s mental status requires they be institutionalized, not only does the risk of his or her committing suicide increase, the risk of other patients following suit also increases. I saw this happen in a state mental hospital in the early 1970s when three patients committed suicide on grounds in a two-week period. It is not “wasteful government spending” to reduce the possible ways for institutionalized mental patients to commit suicide.
Richard H. Ellis, Sedalia
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