Review, Dec/20: Systematic violations of patients' rights and safety...

The full title of this Danish review is "Systematic violations of patients' rights and safety: Forced medication of a cohort of 30 patients".

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34018956/

 

 

Abstract

 

We assessed the records for 30 consecutive patients who had appealed decisions about forced medication with antipsychotics to the Psychiatric Appeals Board in Denmark. In all 21 cases where there was information about the effects of previous drugs, the psychiatrists stated that antipsychotics had had a good effect whereas none of the patients shared this view. The harm caused by earlier or currently used antipsychotics did not seem to have played any role in the psychiatrists' decision-making. The legal requirements for using force to protect the patients' health were never met and less intrusive treatments than antipsychotics, eg, benzodiazepines or psychotherapy, were never mentioned as options. The power imbalance was extreme, the patients felt misunderstood and ignored, their legal protection was a sham, and the harm done was immense. The violation of patient rights is a global problem. We suggest that forced medication be abandoned.

 

 

I agree, they need to get rid of forced medications. I was forced to take meds when I was in the hospital on involuntary stay last year. And just like the description of your article, nine times out of 10 whenever you tell a psychiatrist that a medicine doesn't help, they list it as a recommended medication in your notes anyways, regardless of what you tell them. Seems to be an insurance thing, like they have to treat something and recommend something, so even if you tell them it doesn't help or that it has adverse reactions, they recommend it on paper anyways.

It was common U.S. practice in the 19th & 20th centuries for each county of a State to have at least one facility called by many names such as Poor Houses, Asylums and County Homes. Usually the basements had six or more heavy duty cells.

 

The County where I was born still has its facility in operation and it is very well maintained (mostly by probationers, including teenagers, fulfilling assigned community service). The Superintendent and his/her family live on the third floor, the residents live on the 2nd floor (one wing for females and the other for males), each wing has shared facilities for showering, sanitation, etc. The first floor has the communal dining room, a kitchen, a room for worship services, and an activity room. There is also a barber's room & chair for the men and a room for hair care for the women.

 

In some of these facilities I've visited, the basement cells are large enough for a cot and tall enough to stand; in others the cells were only tall enough to enter by crawling or stooping very low and I assume the occupants had to sleep on the floor. I have never seen the cells house residents in my lifetime but, I'm sure they did house uncontrollable residents during the 100+ years that they have been in existence. Now, I speculate such residents are transported to emergency room or other medical facilities until they are permitted to return to their "home".

 

https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/county-homes/

 

"The strange saga of Peter Gøtzsche and Physicians for Informed Consent"

 

Recently, it was noted that Peter Gøtzsche, formerly of Cochrane Nordic, was featured on the speaker list for an antivaccine quackfest organized by the antivaccine group Physicians for Informed Consent, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Toni Bark, and Marry Holland. Two days later, he announced that he would not be speaking there. So what happened? And what is Physicians for Informed Consent?

 

David Gorski on February 18, 2019

 

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-strange-saga-of-peter-gotzsche-and-physicians-for-informed-consent/