Attorney General Raoul needs to stand up for Westlake Hospital

Westlake Hospital is truly a community hospital in the Village of Melrose Park.

As the Sun-Times has written, patient care is what is most important, not the bottom line in a ledger.

Westlake is the only hospital in the area with a major behavioral and addictions mental health wing. Chicago’s near west suburbs are ground zero for the opium epidemic. With 50 beds in a dedicated psychiatric wing, Westlake Hospital is the main organization on the front lines of this crisis.

Newly elected Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is in a unique position.

The Village of Melrose Park has filed for a temporary restraining order that would prevent Westlake Hospital from closing. In violation of Illinois law, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board voted last week not to defer Pipeline’s application to shut the hospital down due to pending legislation.

Melrose Park is currently suing Pipeline for fraudulently purchasing Westlake Hospital.

Raoul was elected on a platform of access to health care. He now has the opportunity to stop an out of state investment company from stripping health care access away from 40,000 low income, minority people.

The order to stay the HFSRB decision will be heard in court Tuesday.

We’re calling on Raoul to stand up for the health care rights of the vulnerable people who elected him to his current office.

State Representative Emanuel Chris Welch

State Representative Kathleen Willis

Melrose Park Mayor Ronald Serpico

Treat mental health issues seriously

When you have a headache there are things you can do to remedy the dull pain: drink water, rest, or take a pain reliever.

But, imagine if the injury is not noticeable from the outside and the symptoms are not clear.

Then what?

If we begin to treat mental health issues the same as physical injuries, our understanding of the subject would have a deeper insight.

An alarming number of youths in our nation’s juvenile justice system have at least one diagnosable mental health issue, which has raised “red flags” due to the fact they are underepresented in treatment.

Factors such as race, culture and gender may affect the likelihood of young peoples’ involvement in the justice system, as well as the services they receive.

While there is no cure, many treatments are available; however, not always in the juvenile justice system.

Michaela Marshall, Lake Bluff

Trump makes his own rules when it comes to the media

It strikes me as ironic that President Donald Trump attacks social media sites for exercising a degree of censorship with regard to individuals who the sites feel are using their outlets to promote attitudes, actions, determined to be hurtful or harmful to others in society.

Ironically, this is a position that Trump has advocated toward any of the media that chooses to be critical of him during his time in office.

He has advocated censorship when it seems to be in his best interests.

It seems Trump devotes an overly inordinate amount of time with the media. I would think there are more important things for the president to address.

The one question I keep asking myself is, whether this man will ever cease this almost juvenile obsession with social media and act not only like the president but like an adult.

Dan Pupo, Orland Park