mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) (01/18/85)
In the midst of my flaming I seem to have left out a few relevant facts. Sorry. From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP ? (Jerry Hollombe) >Here, IF you can demonstrate a person is a clear and present danger to >themselves (or others) you can PROBABLY get them put on a 72 hour hold. I was talking about people who had actually attempted suicide, rather than people who are a risk but haven't done anything. >The patient must be represented by counsel at this hearing Here I think that is the patient's option, but, while the law is nice and clear on such things, hospital staffs can circumvent it easily. Your doctor can take away your phone privileges, for instance. Don't laugh; I've seen it happen to people. >As for calling the ACLU, most wards have pay-phones accessible to the >patients. Quite true. A friend of mine tried to call a lawyer from one once; though he had been told that phone calls were private, when he started to talk a staff member appeared from the nearby office and ripped the phone out of his hands. His phone privileges were subsequently taken away. Yes, he was breaking a rule by calling someone not on the 'approved' list. (Phone privileges were granted such that a patient was allowed to call two or three people at best (family had to be the first one), and he had to specify who he was calling when he started the call. The phone was also behind a locked door, so random access was impossible.) On the other hand, his civil rights were being violated (both in not being allowed to talk to a lawyer and in having his conversations eavesdropped on) and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Another interesting thing about this place came out when another friend (ok, so a lot of my friends are considered 'odd'...) tried to leave. She had not been committed, and upon her entry she had been given a list of her rights. She had also been required to sign the admissions forms, which did not mention term of stay but did say that she had to provide 72 hours' notice if she wanted to leave. Guess what the 72 hour period was for. Why didn't they just commit her in the first place if they were going to putll that b.s. on her? [As an aside, every one of the 'rights' was tested and failed.] This person was under 18, by the way, but she, not her parents, had signed the admissions forms. Anyone know how the laws break down for people under 18? Anyway, it is this sort of stuff that makes me despise the current system of punishment. I'm by no means an expert (I don't even work in the field) but isn't there *some* other way to solve the problem aside from locking people up? -Dragon -- UUCP: ...ucbvax!dual!lll-crg!dragon ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg
hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (Jerry Hollombe) (01/21/85)
>From: mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) >Subject: civil liberties, law, etc >Message-ID: <243@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA> >Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI First, I'd like to remind people that what I said in my previous posting applied ONLY to the state of California. I'm not well versed in the laws of other states. The same goes for what I say here. >From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP ? (Jerry Hollombe) >>Here, IF you can demonstrate a person is a clear and present danger to >>themselves (or others) you can PROBABLY get them put on a 72 hour hold. > >I was talking about people who had actually attempted suicide, rather than >people who are a risk but haven't done anything. Here people who have actually attempted suicide are generally taken to medical hospitals to recover from the attempt. (I assume the same is done in most places.) I have known cases where we couldn't get someone put on 72 hour hold even after the paramedics had rescued them in the midst of an attempt. There simply wasn't any space available in the local mental hospitals (thank you, former Governer, now President, Reagan )-: ). The same funding shortages mean that Psychic Evaluation Teams (PET squads) are only available 9 to 5, Monday through Friday (really, I'm NOT joking). Getting into a mental hospital on a weekend night can be well nigh impossible even for people who WANT to be admitted. >>As for calling the ACLU, most wards have pay-phones accessible to the >>patients. > >of his hands. His phone privileges were subsequently taken away. Yes, he >was breaking a rule by calling someone not on the 'approved' list. (Phone >privileges were granted such that a patient was allowed to call two or three >people at best (family had to be the first one), and he had to specify who he >was calling when he started the call. The phone was also behind a locked >door, so random access was impossible.) On the other hand, his civil rights Phones at Camarillo State Mental Hospital (for example) just hang on the wall in an open ward -- no locks, no bugs. As I mentioned before, the SPC used to get calls from inpatients even after we had complained to the staff there. >her? [As an aside, every one of the 'rights' was tested and failed.] This >person was under 18, by the way, but she, not her parents, had signed the >admissions forms. > >Anyone know how the laws break down for people under 18? Here a person under 18 doesn't really have much in the way of rights. Her signature on the admissions forms would have been worthless. If she was in a hospital, it would be with the permission of her parents or legal guardian and very much up to them whether she could leave or not (assuming the hospital was willing to keep her). The best she could hope for would be to convince a sympathetic doctor (yes, they do exist) to discharge her. A friend of mine did exactly that after being sent to an inpatient drug rehab program as an alternative to jail on a drug bust. >Anyway, it is this sort of stuff that makes me despise the current system of >punishment. Sadly, there are still "snake pits" out there even in California, and we're better than most. Over-medication is probably the worst offense in most of these places. You don't have to grab phones away from people who are too stoned to find the handset. You need less people to supervise them in general, too, and budget constraints are always tight. > I'm by no means an expert (I don't even work in the field) but >isn't there *some* other way to solve the problem aside from locking people >up? I have a Master's degree in clinical psychology and I don't claim to be an expert either. On the other hand, "to solve the problem" is really much too vague a statement to be meaningfully answered. Some people really do need to be locked up for their own good and that of society. Some really do benefit from a few weeks rest and tranquilizers. Most have very little chance of improvement if they are kept in an institution longer than a few weeks. Thereafter, their chances of improvement vary inversely with their length of stay. I can't offer any obvious, easy answers. I can point out that the chief controlling factor in terms of quality care is economic. Most of the snake pit conditions one encounters can be traced back to inadequate budgets rather than to deliberate malice or desire to maltreat people. The money simply isn't there to hire the quality help needed to do the job right. (Example: I work with computers because I couldn't make a living with a Master's in psychology. I'm not talking about a GOOD living. I could not get a job that paid enough to SUBSIST on.) -- ============================================================================== ... sitting in a pile of junk on the runway, wondering what happened ... The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe) Citicorp TTI If thy CRT offend thee, pluck 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. it out and cast it from thee. Santa Monica, California 90405 (213) 450-9111, ext. 2483 {vortex,philabs}!ttidca!ttidcc!hollombe