According to the article, "The state sent a team Tuesday to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new procedures to ensure patients receive proper care." They need a special procedure to prevent patients from being left in a chair w/o food & in their own human waste for 22 hours? Isn't that special procedure called 'basic human decency?'

I continually hear that these are isolated incidents. I'm actually surprised we don't hear of more deaths. Only one of the hospitals I was in did the required 15 minute checks, all of them wrote that they did, but only one actually did it.

Why does this happen? It happens because there is very little accountability. Families & friends are generally not present. There's a lock on the door. What are the patients suppose to do about it? Get mad? They've got a remedy for those who get mad.

I remember a very, very thin elderly woman who was hospitalized and not eating because of fears that the food was poisoned. She hadn't eaten in days. A few of us were sitting at her table & a couple of the patients encouraged her & she began eating a little bit - but the staff said it was time to go. Another patient and myself asked the staff if they could please wait a few more minutes because she was finally eating. They didn't care.

It makes me so sad to think of all the people who have been harmed (most of it emotionally & psychologically) in psych hospitals. The way they treat people in those places is atrocious.

I looked to see if TAC had anything to say about this tragedy, but of course they did not. TAC is so focused on getting people into psych hospitals, but they don't give a damn about what happens to the patients once they're there.

My daughter was left in the ER for 17 hours last June 07 and was brought in severely dehydrated, and left in urinated clothing by ER staff, locked in a seclusion room.

She was supposed to have been given an IV and she got liquid because I found a hospital logo water bottle and filled it up for her. No food was ever offered, nothing was.

I suppose if she had died someone would have noticed us.

On my way home from the NAMI convention this summer, my family and I visited the Andersonville Civil War POW camp. The story told about the mass deaths there was exactly what we hear all the time from people charged with the care and custody of others.

"There's not enough money. No resources. We did what we could. We'll punish the wrongdoers."

But people repeat these crimes endlessly, especially when the person in captivity is stigmatized, dehumanized, devalued, and alien from us. And especially when they are inconveniencing us, keeping us from doing the other more important thing.

On the way out of Andersonville you drive through its cemetery -- with thousands of prisoner gravestones and flags. It's a "kick in the teeth" lesson that people who care for the helpless should experience for themselves.

--pk---

You want to investigate and write about the true travesty that goes on in psychiatry: look into how managed care has turned inpatient psychiatric care into half adhesive band aids. You won't read about the numerous patients who get admitted for legitimate psychiatric illnesses and get discharged after 3 to 5 days as that is all the insurance will reimburse, only for the patients to go out and either succeed at the future suicide attempt, or be on an obscene meds regimen that causes side effects that either induces a readmission, lack of follow up with an outpatient source due to fears of further meds reactions, or, and in my opinion as bad if not worse, reinforce this quick fix attitude and turn people into meds seekers and get into long term problems like most of the commenters here complain of near daily.

Insurers are as much an issue as big pharma; they are just more covert at maintaining their mayhem. If you all want to bitch, status quo will do nicely for you all. If you care about it and want change, assemble, expose, and push hard on those who can implement change.

Oh, by the way, for all of those talking about change via Obama's campaign, change is about everyone in the political system. Get rid of incumbents in office more than 15 years, cause they are most of the problem. If politics is going to be a major driving force to get care corrected, you need fresh people, not jaded, bloated, selfserving fuckheads in the House and Senate who resent you, not represent you as they need you to vote them to stay and maintain their selfish agendas. Mental health needs a loud and impassioned voice, and start by speaking out against those who care little as mental health people tend NOT to vote.

Just an opinion.

In response, NAMI will rally its members, organize letter writing campaigns and demonstrations, foster editorial coverage and seek redress from our legislators as they did so magnificently when Ms. Green died of abject neglect at Kings County Hospital. NOT. If not then and not now will the "nation’s largest grassroots organization for people with mental illness and their families" ever?

Revolving door patients are because of insurance not covering for adequate time inpatient and inpatient doesn't work because it's medication based only care. They consider the patient stable if the patient is med compliant, that is why most get out in 3-5 days and why some who are detained via court order get out after 72 hours or 14 days.

My daughter at age 17 became a medicaid patient for inpatient "care" because her life time insurance cap ran out. LIFETIME cap. Insurance companies pass the info on to other providers so the cap remains the same. (this happened to her)

So as a medicaid patient she is treated at the least desirable hospitals, that most people who have insurance never see. Medical hospitals won't allow her to stay in their units because she doesn't have good insurance.

I never in my life thought one of my children would be on medicaid and I would be at the mercy of a system that is defunct, inadequate and complete OFF when it comes to helping psychiatric patients.

Unless serious therapy beyond bead bracelet making enters a psych ward treatment plan, this will never change.

I've seen too much to have hope it will. It won't. Psychiatry is ran by pharmaceutical company influence, and it is that medical model that does not work for wellness.

PS- all of the bad care my daughter received in ER's and medical hospitals dumping her to the curb due to being a psych patient happened while I was there with her every second. I had to physically bring her food and water and demand her clothes be changed and believe me the people were less than respectful to me or to her.

Sorry I've left far too many comments this time, but this story is just not shocking to me, from what I've witnessed happen to my own adult age child.

I'm a mental health professional with manic-depression. I want to thank you for the work you do on this website and elsewhere in writing about these issues. Thank you for fighting the good fight. All the best.

There is a family whose son died in an antipsychotic clinical trial in '04 (name?). They are encouraging everyone to write to Senator Grassley (snail mail) and asking that he introduce legislation to fund Soteria Houses. These existed until Pharma made them be shut down, and they did wonders for people with major mental illness. The idea was: kindness, little to no medication, talk therapy, physical work such as in a garden. I know there was one in Vermont. Please google Soteria House and consider writing. It would be a vicious fight against private providers and Pharma but a worthy fight.

Sorrowful,

Email me at dem8899 at gmail.com. I am interested in hearing more about the Soteria House as I would love to see this in my state.

I thought this is something you have to propose to your state legislators.

Do you have to have the blueprint or how does one go about this

AA

Dear Philip:

These kinds of abuses happen all the time in the mental health field across America (yet when death is not the result they are rarely reported). There are so many people that work in mental health that are just what I call "pay checkers". They just don't CARE!

I have worked in enough hospitals to see it time and time again. These so called professionals sitting at the nurses’ station surfing the web, doing their own little personal petty stuff, and ignoring the patients in their charge and care.

This is the unfortunate reality in almost every system nationwide; it’s the dirty discrimination of the same old them and us mentality and actions. Once someone is committed against their will by law and becomes the patient; they automatically become a less than (less than human, less human rights, less legal rights, less dignity, less of everything we value as unique individuals).

It usually starts with the psych doc’s and administrators not doing their jobs and being active members of the solution; in time working right down the line to level of care staff. Just another bad and inhumane side effect of the medical model is use today.

If anyone actually thinks there is actual treatment going on in the vast majority of these places we call mental hospitals and institutions, they are living in a fantasy land and not on this planet. This is the cold hard reality of our society and the system itself.

Can or will it change? I seriously doubt it at this juncture in our history, this is just another inhumane step in the many the proceeded it throughout time and civilization.

If anyone thinks our government is the instrument of dramatic change no matter who's in office. All I can say is “follow the money and influence”!

The mistreatment of the mentally ill is in many ways taken with the same attitude and posture as a prostitute being raped. The laws are in firmly place, but there is no one or very few that are there caring enough to enforce them.

Mental health is the problem of the whole society! Thus, therein lays the solution.

Until society wraps their arms around humane and inclusive treatment as they have with developmentally disabled and other disabilities; the only thing those with severe mental illness will get is more pills and less care.

It’s the same old story played out over and over again. I have been there, I been witness on both sides of the fence, and I have tried to make a small change by some genuine caring, hard work, and understanding; but even for that effort I was ostracized from the status quo in these entrenched institutional monsters.

Yours Truly
Stan

TherapyFirst, if I were an insurance company I wouldn't want to cover inpatient psych treatment either. It sucks. I went in for major depression, and I came out even more depressed than I was when I went in. The place smelled like urine. The staff were surly. I watched a nurse rip the phone out of an ADULT patient's hand while the patient was talking. The only time I was allowed to go outside was during smoke break - and I don't smoke but that was the only way I was ever allowed out to sit in the sunshine. The nurses on night shift sat at the front desk and read novels. In group therapy (if you really want to call it that) people are falling over asleep in their antipsychotic haze. Hell, I wouldn't cover it either. Yeah, it did absolute wonders for my depression.

I remember when I looked at my itemized bill it had a charge for $82 for recreational therapy. Recreational therapy consisted of a staff member plopping down a scattergories game on a table. If you were Blue Cross would you reimburse for that? They did - but I wouldn't have.

It's not managed care that's the main problem here. It's lack of respect. I watched a psych tech mimic a psychotic patient who was singing. The nurses who heard it did nothing. The doctor who heard it did nothing. That has nothing to do with money. There are many people who work in this field who do not believe we deserve respect.

I understand that there are kind psychiatrists. But, frankly the 15 minutes or so that they spend with the patient in the hospital isn't going to have much impact if the rest of the time patients are having to put up with this kind of bullshit.

Soteria information for alternative care and treatment:

Soteria-Alaska.

A Systematic Review of the Soteria Paradigm for the Treatment of People Diagnosed With Schizophrenia.

Hi Stephany

Thanks, I am familiar with the Alaska site. I will check out the other one

Even after reading the alaska site, I am unclear as to how to lobby for one. I had difficulty with reading even prior to being placed on meds which has worsened that issue

I will find the answers somehow. But if Flawed Plan knew something I didn't, I wanted to know.

.

AA

I have a son in the hospital on a 96 hour hold and the doctor isn't making him take any medications and he has bipolar type 1 and I just received temp.guardianship what should I do

Mabel, it's typically a 72 hour detention, and 24 hrs. prior to court patients have the right to refuse medication.

To Mabel:

contact an attorney, as the above issues you raise are legal and this is not a site to give you that advice or direction.

therapyfirst (psychiatrist)

Mabel,
Having spent 3 years in mental health court I can write personal experience, though all states have different laws or ways to do things.

If in fact you have guardian ad litem, you must have an attorney. Also you son by law receives free representation. In essence you are on the prosecuting team (the one that wants the son in the hospital) and your son and his attorney are on the defense team and can get him out.

He would have to be gravely disabled or a danger to self or others to be held longer than the detention period.

I would look at Bazelon website for clarification of patient rights and as a parent, you must know you will be working against your son to retain him or commit him.

Also, insurance plays a part in the length of time the stay will end up being, and at tops it is typically 14 days if involuntary. Longer stays require repeated court orders.

After a suicide attempt in February to which I changed my mind and forced myself to vomit up the overdose of pills I took, I called 911 and that started the real nightmare for me. The ER they took me too treated me like garbage and made me sit half-naked on a bed in front of the nurses station for over 7 hours and refused to call my family. They had taken all my clothes and cell phone and would not let me call anyone myself either. I only seen a doctor for maybe 2 minutes and that was only to come over and tell me about the blood work. I was never examined by a doctor or asked any questions by a doctor and not even did a nurse take any medical history or do any examination. The only "treatment" I received was FORCING me to drink charcoal water that was approximately 6 hours after I vomitted the pills up. According to what I have found out since charcoal water is only effective if given within 2 hours of ingestion. I later was transferred to a psychiatric hospital (that isn't what I call it) and treated even worse than the ER hospital. I was told my the psychiatrist that "you have to be admitted because you need help" and within minutes a woman came in and stuck a piece of paper under my nose to sign. I stupidly signed it but did think it was odd I had to sign something if I am being admitted involuntarily. Well long story short I was never given any informtion about the difference in voluntary and involuntary or told of any of my rights until a copy of our states receipients rights was given to me after I signed the commitment. I even had to ask for a copy of the commitment later because I didn't even know for sure what I signed. I was lied to by this doctor and I unknowingly commited myself and when I questioned the social worker and the 2nd psychiatrist I seen when I was sent upstairs to the lock up they both got angry and told me they could make it much worse for me and the psychiatrist said if I would rather go in front of a judge he had no problem doing that. Well then I guess he should have made it an involuntary commitment if that was what they supposedly had a right to do. My therapist (ironically) has given me some information in order to file a complaint with the hospital and state but I am still unclear as to what legally they can do to a person who tries to commit suicide in the state of Michigan. I know it is not illegal (only to assist in a suicide) but how can they treat someone like a criminal when it isn't even illegal? It wasn't like I denied doing what I did and I know what I did was wrong but to be locked up without a trial or a judge involved and they did nothing but traumatize me - they did NOTHING to help me but force me to take drugs I never wanted to take and never had taken in the past.

Tina,

Your experience is similar to mine in this respect, illegally forced into a psych hospital with fake commitment papers and an armed deputy sheriff who also thought the papers were real - I won the lawsuit but at great expense, financial, time wise and emotional - I was also presented with papers to sign and wondered, why, if I was being held for being mentally incompetent would the hospital think my signature was binding. I refused to sign but then I was in law school and among other things already on alert for what they would get me to sign.

Also, you are like me in that I received no medical treatment. The billed me $1000 a day to take my blood pressure and pulse and of course provide horrible food and "group therapy" where we played bingo.

A starting point for looking into your legal rights is http://psychrights.org/index.htm and there's also http://www.handelonthelaw.com/home/default.aspx

Thanks for sharing your all to common story of psychiatric abuse.

Tina,
The charcoal is more of a punishment than anything else. There's a belief amongst ER people that if you treat people badly enough, make it unpleasant enough, they wont' attempt suicide again. Nonsense, of course.

They used to pump your stomach, which is much worse than drinking charcoal. Very frightening.

If they did this immediately upon arrival yes, it would be treatment. But they often wait a couple of hours so obviously it's not treatment at all. The best you could say would be "mindless following of protocol to CYA." This sort of mindless self concern hardly increases one's trust in the medical profession.

I've already figured out the last thing anyone should do when suicidal is reach out for "help" from any member of the mental "health" profession. I'd rather be dead, frankly. The hardest part of suicide isn't the death part, IMO. It's the unbearable loneliness of being in so much pain but unable to speak to *any* one about it, lest you end up being "helped" against your will by these ignoramuses.

The Samaritans are the only people I would consider turning to. They listen, just listen. They don't try to fix or save, just listen. This is the only thing I've ever found helpful, frankly. They've probably saved my life several times over, just by listening and NOT trying to "save" me.

Sherry wrote, "It's the unbearable loneliness of being in so much pain but unable to speak to *any* one about it, lest you end up being "helped" against your will by these ignoramuses."

Yes.

Sally wrote, "Also, you are like me in that I received no medical treatment. The billed me $1000 a day to take my blood pressure and pulse and of course provide horrible food and "group therapy" where we played bingo."

Quite a scam, isn't it.