Feds Find NYC Psych Hospital "Nightmarish, Prison"

Late last week, the federal Department of Justice issued a report following its investigation of the psych unit at the Kings County (Manhattan) Hospital Center. As the New York Times reported:

"After a yearlong investigation, the Department of Justice portrayed the unit at Kings County Hospital Center as a nightmarish place where patients were not treated for suicidal behavior, were routinely subdued with physical restraints and drugs instead of receiving individualized psychiatric treatment, and were frequently abused by other patients."

I'm too disgusted to delve into the details, so please read the paper's article for yourself. There's also a copy of the DOJ report linked on the paper's website. Yes, this is the same place where a woman was left to die on a floor last year.

I find a couple of things striking, however. One, if there were doctors and nurses working at this unit--and there surely were--then they are likely in breach of their state licenses and ethical charges (that whole first, do no harm thing) and someone ought to hold them to account for standing by while this barbarity went on. Two, if society is going to employ its right to detain people in psych units, then it simply has to provide them with an abuse-free environment, at a minimum, or that society loses its right to detain people. The snake pit has got to become a thing of ancient history.

Separately, in the Australian state of Victoria, last week dozens of former patients spoke at a public hearing on mental health laws and pointed to many instances of patients having no rights in a system that often employs forced ECT, seclusion as punishment and "guesswork pharmacology." Although the system and its rules are under review there, you've got to wonder why some of these things even need review. Patients should have an absolute right to at least protect their own brains and bodies and the system over there should find a way to incorporate reasonable precautions to protect patients.

I'm not sure they can look to America for an example of how to do so.