I have been following this case for several months now:
Horrifying does not begin to describe this case.
If I had been treated in March 2006 during my first hospitalization as these patients allege they were treated by this doctor and this staff and this hospital in Arkansas when I was first hospitalized for bipolar disorder in Jackson, Mississippi, I would now be dead.
I would never have returned for further treatment.
My husband would have never trusted another facility to treat me.
I would have continued to spiral.
And I would have killed myself, alone, in a hotel room in Covington, Louisiana in 2006.
I would never have seen my youngest daughter grow up.
I would have never seen my children graduate high school.
I would have shattered my husband’s heart. He would have blamed himself. As would have my parents, my sister, my friends–they would never have gotten over that.
This country has got to do better by people who suffer from mental illness than was done for years at this facility.
Correctly spend the tax dollars. Enforce the federal mandates on the insurance system. Screen children in the schools. Enforce oversight by health departments of the facilities they regulate. Enforce standards of care for doctors to follow. Lift the licenses of doctors who do not do so. That would be a good start.
These horrors should never have occurred. The laws are there. Everyone involved in mental health care should take responsibility for providing it in a humane, safe, effective fashion. It can be done. I’m living proof.