You Be The Judge In A Mental Health Court
Please read this:
“A person may be dangerous to self and others when he or she have recently threatened or attempted suicide or some serious bodily injury. He or she may have demonstrated danger of substantial and imminent harm to himself and/ or others through some recent act, attempt or threat of the same.”
Now, I’d welcome your interpretation of this legal definition of a mentally ill person’s status in a court in a crisis center or public psychiatric hospital whose family members or colleagues trying to get an involuntary assessment of their mental health/competence to make their own decisions. Pay particular attention to the words “dangerous”, “threatened”, “recently”, “substantial”, “imminent” or “harm”.
What conduct, voiced statements or behaviors would lead you to your decision to either release the person to society or have them confined temporarily for psychiatric assessment and further action?
This is the legal guidance recently accessed resulting in the release of a young man in Virginia, with mental health history from an assessment session at a local hospital when went home and stabbed his father and shot himself. Not to mention countless other cases across the nation that particular day.
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The problem is that you are having to apply a legal interpretation to what is a judgement decision, and different people can look at the same situation and come to different conclusions.
And we can’t forget that the law tilts in favor of the person under scrutiny: sanity and personal responsibility are the default positions, and have to be thoroughly proved.
If a person has threatened to commit suicide, and there was only one witness, is that enough?
The republicans yearn for the day that the husband decides if his wife is nuts.
Life was so easy back then.
The null hypothesis is “this person is dangerous”
There are four possible outcomes.
1-You say the person is dangerous and you are correct.
2-You say the person is dangerous and you are incorrect.
3-You say the person isn’t dangerous and you are correct.
4-You say the person isn’t dangerous and you are incorrect.
1& 3 are fine. 2 isn’t a huge error because it can be addressed by further examination. 4 is the error you have to work hard to guard against.
Sadly, they claimed to have released him not because he was not a danger but because there were no treatment beds to detain him.
Paris Hilton needs her tax cuts.
The local Virginia media called nearby (an hour or two away) psych. facilities and found three with beds; it appears the local hospital clinicians on the case were not competent in this search. He clearly needed hospitalization or they would not have undertaken the incompetent search; so his father is badly injured and the son is dead.
And PP continues his quest to lock up relatives at the drop of a hat. Move on, seen this already.
I’m pretty familiar with the area and still have family there. The Bath Community Hospital is very small with not much more than a hand full of staff. It has something like 20 some odd beds. This is a county that does not have a single traffic light in the entire county. Normally there would be no psychiatric care available at the hospital and the staff would have called adjacent counties (Alleghany and Highland) which are also pretty small counties (although they both have a few traffic lights). Serious medical issues have to be airlifted to a different county. I’m guessing those two counties are slim on psychiatric facilities. So, the nearest care would have been at least two hours away, unless he was to be airlifted. Charlottesville (UVA) or Roanoke. Both 2 hours at least.
Wonder what happens if you are out on the old home prairie and need such services with the nearest place hours away? Centralized medicine seems to work fairly well in more urbanized settings. It’s hard to establish the entire gamut of care in more remote areas.
FYI. My mother and her family were raised in Hot Springs, VA and know the Deeds quite well.
Well, Sussex Watcher, it’s a conversation worth having. Someone is dead who maybe could have been effectively treated. I don’t know enough about this particular case to comment in it, but I believe family members should at least be consulted in determining whether to commit somebody.
“There’s a Unicorn in the garden.” Paging James Thurber.
Regarding rural Virginia or rural anywhere, one with think though that at least the clinical people on hand would be schooled enough to persistently access more experienced psych help for assessment and next steps. Don’t know the facts but on its face, this sounds like a screw up down there.
Does the stick-to-one-name rule here apply to the bloggers as well, or are they allowed to sockpuppet their own posts? Just asking, no reason.
SW contributes vitally to the conversation once again!
This is closer to where I would be comfortable with …. not what I actually mean, but the closest thing i can think to call it…. mandatory, involuntary care. That is, if more than 1 doctor and most (or all) of the immediate family agrees that a person really needs help, there should be a provision in the law to help them out.
I have trouble thinking down that road, however…. I can see a crazy Wingnut “doctor” or 2, and a Pastor and 2 ass hole parents getting an official court order to put their gay son in “rehab”…. dont think it can happen?
Their lifestyle is “dangerous” to themselves and others. they present a “threat” to their family. There would have to be an extremely detailed system of oversight to ensure that the only people who were being “helped” were those who not only will “most likely” kill themselves, but will most likely kill others. Even then, it is difficult for me to “lock someone up”…. either at home surrounded by loving family and good care, or in a hospital, based on assumption…. no matter how compelling the evidence is.
From what I’ve read there are pretty good diagnostic tests out there. I mean, they aren’t perfect but reduce the subjectivity by a lot.
Im sure there are.
I have trouble seeing it as anything other than pre-punishing. Obviously i dont want to wait until someone is hurt or killed…. got that interwebz? Socialistic ben does not want to wait until someone is hurt or killed……… But we already put innocent people in jail after there has been a crime and a trial and all that. Is to say, we have enough trouble proving the truth of “this person is a threat” as it is.
This is some Minority Report type stuff. Definitely one topic I have a very hard time deciding my opinion on.