DISASTROUS EFFECTS Restraint Deaths and Abuse

Being denied human rights is not the only loss that a patient risks in psychiatry�s coercive system. The patient�s life can be at risk from chemical and physical restraints. Today, there are several methods used�all violent, all potentially lethal�in which hospital staff physically and brutally restrict a patient�s movement, usually just before drugging him or her into unconsciousness.

Mechanical restraints include straitjackets, leather belts or straps that cuff around each ankle and wrist. Debilitating drugs are administered as a means of chemical control and frequently induce violent responses.

A lawsuit in Denmark revealed that  hospitals received  additional funding for treating violent patients. Harvard psychiatrist Kenneth Clark reported that in America patients are often provoked to justify placing them in restraints, also resulting in higher insurance reimbursements�at least $1,000 a day. The more violent a patient becomes�or is made�the more money the psychiatrist or facility makes.

In 1999, it was revealed by the  Hartford Courant that up to 150 restraint deaths occur without accountability every year in the United States alone. At least 13 of the deaths over a two year period were children, some as young as six years old. 

Steps taken to curb the death toll have had little effect. Despite the passage of restrictive federal regulations in the United States in 1999, another nine children had died of suffocation or cardiac arrest from violent restraint procedures by 2002.

A sampling of horrific restraint deaths follows:

In 1998, 16-year-old Tristan Sovern was held face down by at least two mental health assistants with his arms crossed under his body. When he screamed, �You�re choking me � I can�t breathe,� staff at the U.S. psychiatric facility shoved a large towel over his mouth and tied a bed sheet around his head. Tristan died of asphyxiation.

The night before 15-year-old Edith Campos was sent to Desert Hills psychiatric facility in Tucson, Arizona, she made colorful computer drawings for her family. If her mother missed her, all she needed to do was look at the picture and think of her daughter and that she would soon be home. Two weeks later, Edith came home in a coffin. During the time she was hospitalized, her parents were not allowed to speak to her. On February 4, 1998, Edith apparently died of asphyxiation, her chest compressed when she was held to the ground for at least 10 minutes after reportedly raising her fist during a confrontation with staff members.

On August 18, 1997, 16-year-old Roshelle Clayborne died during restraint at a psychiatric facility in San Antonio, Texas. Roshelle was slammed face down on the floor, her arms yanked across her chest, her wrists gripped from behind by a mental health aide. ��I can�t breathe,�� she gasped. Her last words were ignored. A syringe delivered 50 milligrams of Thorazine into her body and with eight staffers watching, Roshelle became suddenly still. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she lost control of her bodily functions. Her limp body was rolled into a blanket and dumped in an 8-by-10- foot room. There she lay in her own waste and vomit for five minutes before anyone noticed she hadn�t moved. By the time a registered nurse arrived and began CPR, it was too late. Roshelle never revived.

In 1998, psychiatric staff forced 13-year-old Canadian Stephanie Jobin to lie face down on the floor while they placed a beanbag chair on top of her. A female staff member sat on a chair to pin her down while another staff member held her feet. She had already been dosed with five different psychiatric drugs. After 20 minutes of struggling, Stephanie stopped breathing and later died. Her death was ruled an accident.

In Denmark in 2002, a patient who was punished by being put into restraints was compensated in a damages suit against the treating psychiatrist. This was the first time ever that com- pensation was awarded to a patient harmed by the restraint procedure.

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