Violating Human Rights

How easy is it to be committed? Very easy. Consider the following examples:

Seventy-four-year-old William, suffering congestive heart failure and reliant on an oxygen tank to breathe, said, �Yes,� in 1992 when his homecare nurse asked if he felt depressed. Within 30 minutes, an attendant from a local psychiatric hospital arrived and when William refused to go with him, the attendant called the police. The officers unhooked
the oxygen tank, searched him for weapons, put him into a police car and drove him to a medical hospital which transferred him to a psychiatric facility. With no examination, William was committed as �suicidal,� and held involuntarily for 72 hours�for �observation.� The next day a psychiatrist said he needed to be detained another 48 hours and possibly as long as six months. William was �saved� only by the onset of a heart attack. He was transferred to a general hospital where a medical doctor determined that William had no need for psychiatric confinement. William�s health insurance was billed $4,000 for four days in the psychiatric facility (even though he had only been there two days, and not by choice), and he was billed $800 personally.

In 1997, Massachusetts parents rushed their 8-year-old epileptic son to a hospital for a medication adjustment after he experienced hallucinations. Instead of adjusting his medication, staff committed him to a psychiatric facility. It took the frantic parents an entire day to secure his transfer to a medical hospital for appropriate care.

In 1999, psychiatrists in Germany involuntarily committed a 79-year-old woman because neighbors reported she had acted �strangely.� Despite her long-term diabetes and liver, kidney and heart conditions, she was prescribed between 5 and 20 times the normal dosage of powerful tranquilizers. Six days later the woman was rushed to a hospital emergency room, where she died. An autopsy determined that she died of breathing difficulties�a complication of tranquilizers.

When 19-year-old �Jo� was persuaded to admit herself to a psychiatric hospital in England while recovering from eating problems, she was told she would be able to rest, go for walks and receive counseling. �My psychiatrist�s idea of counseling was to put me on antipsychotic drugs, and whenever I had a problem� to increase the dose, she told a London newspaper in 2000. There was nothing to do but eat, watch television and smoke. On the drugs, �I became aggressive, and for the first time, I started to cut my arms,� she said. �The longer I was in there, the less sane I became.� When she ran away, she was returned to the hospital and involuntarily committed. A patient raped her. But when she reported this to staff they told her the man was �just ill.� It took several months before Jo�s mother was able to secure her release. �Looking back it�s hard to believe what happened to me. I went in for a rest but came out a total wreck.�

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