It is abundantly clear that those bureaucrats in middle management in the California Department of Mental Health ("DMH") have, when attempting to solve problems of even minor magnitude, forgotten the old proverb: 

Apparently these decision makers in the DMH do not think beyond the first possible solution that comes to their minds -- as any potential problems created by their solution are obviously not being considered beforehand, and that causes further and compounded problems in the aftermath. 

While the particular scenario described below may appear minor in nature, the cumulative effects of many such minor incidents, on a nearly daily basis, are huge. Such examples are indicative of ineffective and inefficient management. The type of bureaucratic misfeasance and inefficiency that wastes countless millions of taxpayer dollars. 

Anyone who doesn't realize the regularity and depth of the inefficiencies and misconduct within the DMH, need only to read the 82 page scathing report recently issued by the United States Department of Justice ("DOJ"). One can also look to history to see that whenever the major functions of a government entity are in the type of disarray reported by the DOJ, the lesser functions of that entity are totally out of control. 

Of course there is also the school of thought that some DMH bureaucrats delight in creating havoc out of vindictiveness and hatred towards their wards. This scenario is supported by both the DOJ Report, and the recent decision against numerous DMH officials and employees, handed down by the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in the case of Hydrick_v._Hunter, (9th Cir. June 1, 2006) Case Number 03-56712, a published decision. 

The minor case in point: The food served at the State's new hospital at Coalinga is prepared outside the institution, flash frozen, brought into the institution, then microwaved and served to the patients. Sounds good in theory even though it is nothing more than a glorified TV dinner. 

The problem presented in this example occurred when someone decided to place a cup of water on the meal tray prior to microwaving the meal tray. A subsequent set of problems resulted from avoiding serving hot water for coffee from a separate urn located in each dining room. Mainly, that in order to heat the water to a temperature adequate for instant coffee, the food itself became overheated, and overheated food has its own set of problems. 

Now here is where the lack of thought and proper planning turns the situation into a fiasco. Even though the food trays are served to the patients from "Hot Carts" located within each dining room, which works well, and the solution to go back to serving hot water from an urn was a good one - but for the fact that this time the urn was located outside the dining room at a central serving window. As the picture builds, bare in mind that nearly everyone wants water with their meal. 

Presently each dining room holds 50 patients, and one central serving window services two dining rooms at the same time. It shouldn't take much of an imagination for anyone reading this article to picture the chaos created when 100 patients file into two dining rooms, 50 to each, pick up their meal tray, take it to a table, then exit the dining room and line up a second time at the central serving window where only one person is working - all 100 of them - to get their hot water for coffee, and then return to their respective dining rooms only to find their meal has gotten cold. 

This situation being intolerable, resulted in some of the patients going to the water line prior to entering the dining room and then going to the meal tray line. The end result was much the same - chaos - just in a different order of progression. 

The problem was even further compounded for those requiring special diet items which could only be picked up from the central serving window. With that window now being clogged-up with patients getting water, it took an even lengthier time for a dieter to obtain his meal, his diet items, and his water. This because the dieter was required to get his meal tray first in order to trade non diet items for diet items. Additionally, he often could not carry all the items in one trip. Thus, he made one trip to get his meal tray, a second trip for diet items, and a third trip for water. Add to this the fact that the hospital serves a great deal of pork, and those who do not eat pork for religious and other reasons often required a fourth trip to the central service window to exchange the pork item. 

None of these problems occurred before the cups were placed on the meal tray, when a hot water urn and empty cups were located and available in each dining room, when the central serving window didn't serve hot water, dieters, and food exchanges all at the same time. Prior to the hot water fiasco, central service window business could be accomplished in a matter of seconds. The line was never longer than two or three patients. 

What were the bureaucrats thinking? Why do bureaucrats always want to fix something that is not broken? 

Granted, there were and are other problems associated with the food and food service -- but hot water was not one of them. The real problems have yet to be addressed, and that's no surprise considering the mess made by "solving" a non-existent problem.
 

Tom Watson