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We Need to Establish a Legal Right to Treatment

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Last week, I explained why I believe the “dangerousness” criteria is an impediment to getting people the help that they need. One reason why civil rights activists pushed hard in the 1970s to get “dangerousness” established was because forcing someone into a state mental hospital was a draconion move.  Being committed was often a de facto life prison sentence. Barbaric treatments, such as forced lobotomies, destroyed lives.

What happens today if someone is forcibly committed?

 In Virginia, on average, you will spend five days or less in a locked mental ward. Your “treatment” will be medication and, if you are willing, therapy in groups where the topic will center almost exclusively on the importance of taking medication. After your five days end, you will be discharged. If you are fortunate, you will be linked to community services. But there’s a good chance that you will be released without any serious follow up.

In short, your life will have been disrupted — not only by your illness — but by the state. Yet, little will be done to actually help you recover from your disorder or help you better handle your symptoms.

This is not meaningful treatment. It explains why some critics are so adamant about clinging to the “dangerousness” criteria. Deep down, they do not believe involuntary commitments benefit anyone. Click to continue…

Neglect and Abuse in North Carolina Prisons!

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Levon Wilson,  a resident of Winston Salem, North Carolina, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, was arrested on August 31, 2010, on misdemeanor charges and sent to the state’s Central Prison to await trial. Five weeks later, he was dead.

An autopsy showed that Wilson had been transferred from the prison to Wake Med Hospital in Raleigh with “moderately high levels” of lithium in his bloodstream ten days before he died. Lithium is often prescribed to treat manic symptoms common with bipolar disorder. But taking too much lithium is deadly. Patients taking lithium must be monitored with blood tests because too much lithium can impair the kidneys and obstruct bowels. 

The autopsy revealed that Wilson had died from “complications of lithium therapy,” which led to him suffering impaired kidneys and bowel problems. Despite the obvious — that someone in the prison system had screwed up in dispensing lithium — a state doctor ruled that Wilson’s death was the result of  “natural” causes. No one was reprimanded. No one was fired.

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