A REPORT OF ABUSE Caught in a Nightmare

Seventy-four-year-old William’s nightmare began when his home care nurse asked a seemingly innocuous question: “Do you feel depressed?”

Considering that William had just been released from a general hospital for congestive heart failure, discharged with orders to use an oxygen tank at home, he felt it reasonable to admit that yes, his spirits were down a bit.

During the next few days, he would wish he had never spoken. The home care nurse began to ply him with odd questions: “Have you ever thought about suicide?” and, “If you were going to commit suicide, how would you do it?” He clearly told her he was definitely not considering suicide. For some reason, she didn’t believe him.

Instead, she made a telephone call and within 10 minutes an attendant from a local psychiatric hospital arrived at William’s home. He refused the attendant’s invitation to return with him to a psychiatric hospital, insisting that he had no desire to kill himself. The attendant made a phone call.

The police arrived. After being unhooked from his oxygen tank, William was searched for weapons, then unceremoniously bundled into a police car, and driven to the medical hospital he had recently been discharged from. Upon arrival, William explained to the physician on duty that there had been a misunderstanding and that he had no intention of committing suicide. He was overruled and taken to a psychiatric facility where, without examination, he was admitted as “suicidal” and held against his will for 72 hours. During this period, a patient assaulted him, knocking him out of his bed. A psychiatrist determined that this was evidence that William was “dangerous.”

The prognosis? William needed to remain under psychiatric “care” for another 48 hours. Fortunately for William, as it turned out, he began to experience a heart attack and was transferred back to the medical hospital. There it was determined he had suffered an angina attack. But as it was “only” angina, the doctors planned to send him back to the psychiatric facility.

A very anxious William managed to prevail upon his medical doctor to keep him—at least until after the court hearing scheduled the next day to assess his competency.

Thankfully, in spite of the testimony of the psychiatrists, the judge agreed with William and a doctor that he was not in need of confinement and was not “crazy.”

As for the aftermath of William’s unsolicited and involuntary imprisonment, his Medicare insurance was billed $4,000 for a four-day stay (even though he had only been kept for two days) and he himself was billed $800 for the treatment of a “mental disorder” he never had.

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