| It's tempting for some people to think "That was 40 years ago, and it couldn't happen now". Things are much better (if only because all those big institutions were closed), but we stills see examples. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/woman-held-... This woman told her doctor that President Obama followed her on Twitter. That's very easy to check, 5 minutes tops. No one checked, they assumed it was a delusion, and she was detained against her will, deprived of her liberty. The submitted article has some really disturbing parts: > A technician rifled through Trimble’s purse for sharp objects and then a nurse told her to strip down to her underwear. It was then, she said, that she realized the doors to the psychiatric ward had locked behind her. > Trimble, who has recently reached a settlement regarding her hospitalization, recalled shaking with fear and “deep, shameful humiliation” as the nurse examined her body, noting the location of any identifying marks. “All you can do,” Trimble said, “is stand there and let it happen.” There's considerable overlap between "people who've experienced abuse" and "people who have mental illness". You can imagine jut how traumatic this kind of treatment could be to some people. > Current and former employees from at least 10 UHS hospitals in nine states said they were under pressure to fill beds by almost any method — which sometimes meant exaggerating people’s symptoms or twisting their words to make them seem suicidal — and to hold them until their insurance payments ran out. This is bizarre. There's no shortage of people who would have an actual need for those beds. |
The article even indicated this:
Current and former employees from at least 10 UHS hospitals in nine states said they were under pressure to fill beds by almost any method — which sometimes meant exaggerating people’s symptoms or twisting their words to make them seem suicidal — and to hold them until their insurance payments ran out.