With the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), it's always more.

More dead children.

More excuses.

More bureaucracy.

Yesterday it was the 16-year-old girl who reportedly suffered 10 years of abuse and torture at the hands of her foster mother, including being stabbed in the eye with a hypodermic needle because she didn't pack a suitcase properly.

Today it's the foster mother charged with killing a 7-year-old boy who died of thirst.

Where was DSHS when that boy's femur was broken?

Where was DSHS when his front teeth were knocked out?

Eli Creekmore.

Lauria Grace.

Zy'Nyia Nobles.

Follow the decades old trail of dead and abused children and you will end up at the DSHS door.

We keep burying children; DSHS keeps burying us in empty promises of more accountability.

Let's face it: the good people who work at this agency - and there are many - are stymied by the bumbling incompetents who set and implement policy and whose only real mission is to cover their ass when another child turns up dead or another multi-million dollar settlement is reached.

Do something, governor.

Do something now.

If you'd like to urge Governor Gregoire to take action on this matter, the following link will provide you access to her office number, her fax and her email address:

http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/default.asp

Please use it.