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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