[hedora]

The US (especially California) basically made it illegal to provide mental health care unless the patient is currently requesting it.

This creates a catch-22 where people that have previously-undiagnosed mental health conditions are denied access to basic healthcare. Worse, even if you were previously certified insane (e.g., for paranoid schizophrenia or manic depression) and have temporarily recovered, it's extremely difficult (impossible?) to sign away your future self's ability to decline medical care, even knowing that you would only do that because of a mental health relapse that makes you unable to care for yourself.

A large percentage of the crazy homeless people you see when walking outside in bay area cities fell into that legal trap (according to workers at our local emergency mental health facilities).

I guess the above now applies to regular health care, since they've decided that imprisoning this woman indefinitely for being sick and unable to care for herself is more compassionate than putting her through a round of antibiotics.

[JohnMakin]

I'm not sure what this even means. "certified insane" is not a thing, and if it were, there are many people who suffer from manic depression who lead otherwise fairly normal lives.

second, in California, a person can be involuntarily held if they are deemed a risk to themselves or others. This is typically done in a mental health facility.

third, you can't really force treatment on anything in the united states, if someone refuses care, the hospital can't just keep you there against your will. Are you advocating for the return of institutionalization?

[KerrAvon]

The bar _should_ be high, but it's too high in California. You can quibble with the imprecise wording above, but in practice the law makes it basically impossible to hospitalize people with severe mental issues against their will. If you ever have to deal with this with elderly relatives, you'll quickly discover that you're essentially powerless no matter how bad it gets.

edited to add: to be super clear: you don't want to make it easy for people to abuse the elderly, which is why the bar has to be high, but there must be a way to compassionately help someone who actually needs help. And there basically isn't.

[JohnMakin]

> but in practice the law makes it basically impossible to hospitalize people with severe mental issues against their will.

This is very literally not the case. In California, hospitals 51-50 people all the time. It's an involuntary 72 hour hold and the criteria for meeting it is not high at all. A professional just has to deem you are a danger to yourself or others. That's the bar, and it's easily met for healthcare providers.