Shackled Feet of Mental Patient - AIMI

Group homes are frequently used.  The trouble is that even group home directors are not allowed to force patients to take their meds.  Residents may cooperate better with treatment in group home settings than when living among their relatives, but ultimately, it is incumbant upon the residents to decide. 

My NP article "One homeless mentally ill man kills another" concerns an acute mental patient with a long psychiatric history who was sentenced by a judge to a mental hospital after he committed aggravated assault.  The mental hospital dismissed him after just six months into a Miami, FL group home, and the man killed his roomate and left the home.  He wandered homeless for weeks until he killed a mentally ill veteran who was sleeping in the park.  A few years ago a group home resident in NY attacked and stabbed a baby in her carriage while she was being taken on an evening stroll by her nanny.  More inpatient space is needed.

Rep. Johnson (TX-30) introduced H.R. 619 to resume Medicaid payments for care in mental institutions (withdrawal of these funds helped cause hospital closings).  Contact your representatives to help get the bill passed:  www.house.gov/writerep/  

Group homes and community care are not suitable for all patients.  Mandatory treatment is needed, and only hospitals can enforce treatment.  Long-term hospitalization is often needed.  However, low funding caused serious bed shortages.  The prisons have the big budgets, not hospitals that could prevent crimes.  Hospital stays are shortened to the point that patients are dismissed who should not be.  Did you read about Yong Pak in the article associated with this photo?  She killed her mom within 12 days of early release from the mental hospital.  http://my.nowpublic.com/health/assisted-outpatient-treatment-program-mentally-ill-vs-jail

These are worst-case scenarios.  Please know that most mentally ill people are non-violent and are more likely to be hurt by others than to do harm. However, I believe that group homes should have the right to enforce treatment in order to save the patients and their communities.  My brother would frequently awaken and leave his group home before medicines were dispensed.  Residents have too few restrictions.  If they choose not to obey the few rules that are imposed, expulsion sometimes results in homelessness.

If the same or less money than what is now being used to have trials and imprison Singleton, the Florida murderer, the NY schizophrenic child attacker, and Yong Pak had been used for their long-term hospitalization, three people would be alive and a baby and her nanny would have been safe on their evening stroll, plus the patients would not be in prison.  There was zero savings to taxpayers, and much avoidable tragedy. 

Thanks for your comments!

Sad but good picture.

Something needs to be done to ban such treatment.  There is no excuse for this.

Thanks for the updates.

I know a few mentally ill people living in small group homes and doing well.

Good comment.

There are different levels of mental illness.  Some can have more freedom than others. We need facilities for all levels of care. Those who need hospital care full time should be able to get it.

I agree we need to change priorities in mentl health care.

Thank you, 158.  I don't know if you have any training in this matter or have been around many people who have this problem, but you have summed up the entire problem nicely. 

Not only are there different people who need different levels of care as you stated, but the amount of care needed can vary for the same patient from one time period to another depending on how they are doing.  I don't think it is any different for any chronic disease.  A person with heart disease, for instance, may be told to exercise daily if his problem is in one stage, but the same patient may be put on bed rest and his medication may be changed if his heart disease is in another stage.  Then he may get better and be allowed off bed rest and told to resume exercising.

Very well stated.  Mental illness is not the same for everyone who has the problem, therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.  I thank you for putting this so clearly.  Using prisons as a catch-all for everyone who has the health condition amd acts inappropriately is wrong.  It would almost be excusable, although heartless, if prisons were cheaper than treatment, but they are not.

Mary

During my son's five years in the system.  He was tied down in five point restraints:  Put on his back with hands and feet tied down, and tied across his chest.  He says this is the worse thing that ever happened to him.  When I wrote to NAMI when I found out about it, they told me get a copy of the protocol, which I did.  After I started asking questions at the facility and asked for their protocol, he had those restraints removed.  But they still kept restraints on his hands and feet.  What good are sedative medications if institutions dont use them?  If a person is unstable, isnt it better to sedate them rather than use these inhumane practices?