Scientology Group Urged Veto of Mental Health Bill

An anonymous reader writes: According to records obtained by The Texas Tribune, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill that would have given doctors more power to detain mentally ill and potentially dangerous patients, after a Church of Scientology-backed group helped organize a campaign against it. "Medical staff should work closely with law enforcement to help protect mentally ill patients and the public," he said. "But just as law enforcement should not be asked to practice medicine, medical staff should not be asked to engage in law enforcement, especially when that means depriving a person of the liberty protected by the Constitution." The bill would have allowed doctors to put mentally ill patients on a four-hour hold if they were suspected of being a danger to themselves or others. The bill had the support of two of the nation's largest medical associations.

Comments

Dangerous power

[abies]

There is a knee-jerk reaction of always standing on the other side of whatever Scientology says, but you need to be very careful in case of mental instiutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I don't see it that far fetched that US government could classify fanatical suicide terrorism as mental illness in 2025 let's say. And then you don't need Guantanamo anymore - there is enough torture-like devices in hospitals to make life uncomfortable for people.

We have had very ugly case in Poland recently (and in theory, being part of EU, we are supposed to be 'first world' country). Some guy got cheated by mayor of small town, assaulted him in public and went for psychiatric observation. Chief doctor of the insitution was very good friend of the mayor... guy got diagnosed with mental illness, being dangerous and got locked away. He tried petitioning for cross-examination etc etc (he was ready to server small jail sentence for assault and then be able to go to civil court to get right for how he got cheated finacially by mayor), but all letters got stopped at hospital. They are allowed to do so, because some crazy people are writing conspiracy theory letters to police every day, so there is a law to stop 'aimless correspondence'. Here, chief doctor decided that all his appeals for crossexamination, freedom and accusing mayor of wrongdoings would upset authorities.
Fast forward 7 years.
Guy leaves hospital completely broken by heavy medication, homeless and to be honest, quite crazy now.

Another case - some guy claims other guy threatened to kill him. No process and instead of few months in prison for verbal threats, 8 years in closed ward.

(Opposite is also true. Guy drives car on pedestrian walk on purpose (there was no road nearby and he was driving for few km , hitting 23 people in process. Instead of going to jail, he got diagnosed as unstable, goes to hospital and can possibly go out after half year. He used to study psychiatrics and his father is very rich so...)

There are so many protections and possibilities to appeal built into judical system, but at same time, we want to give unlimited power without possibility of appeal to some doctors.

Re:Dangerous power

[swb]

I agree there can be abuse, but here's a counter example:

My neighbors across the street were a well-educated couple in their early 50s. Your stereotypical liberal, white academics. They had a son in college. Mike was a university professor and Theresa was a writer and an editor for a book publisher. We hosted several neighbors for a New Year's Eve party, including this couple. We had known all of them for a few years.

During the party, Theresa was unusually animated -- if I didn't know better, I'd thought she'd done a couple lines of coke. Fast forward a couple of months later, I see her pulling up to her house in a brand new hybrid sedan. I start talking to her and it's like, wow, Theresa, no more coke. She's, well, crazy animated. She's got a semi-paranoid story about how her husband left her. She's starting her own magazine. She's arranging a photo shoot in Nepal. She's just bought a $2000 recumbent bike. A $2000 set of downhill ski gear.

A week later, I see her again. This time "I've been staying at the Grand Hotel [a pricey, boutique hotel downtown] because I need Internet access and Mike made it so I can't get it at home."

A week after that, a really scary looking black guy is getting out of her car -- without her -- and is seen going in and out of her house, sometimes carrying stuff to load in the car. Her immediate next door neighbors try talking to the guy "Hey, how's Theresa?" and he's angry and threatens them. They call the cops, the cops detain the guy but they let him go after talking to Theresa on the phone "Yes, he's my boyfriend."

Fast forward a few weeks later and we see her ex-husband and we get the story. Theresa is bipolar. She's went off her meds around New Year's Eve. She got so bad and refused any kind of treatment or to take her meds, yes, he does leave her and basically files for divorce to protect himself from her.

By the time her sister -- working with lawyers -- is able to gain conservatorship of her, about a month later, after probably six weeks of trying, she's nearly bankrupt. When she and her husband divorced, their house had been recently remodeled and was owned free and clear. She stayed, mortgaged the place to cash him out and had blown through the $200k half of her equity plus another $50k in credit card debt. Fired from her job, the "magazine" a total fantasy. The black guy was literally some guy she met on the street outside the hotel.

Her sister finally gets her committed on a short-term basis and they get her back on her meds. By this time, though, she's done. She files bankruptcy, sells the house short along with almost all her possessions to try to pay off some debt. She ends up in a studio apartment somewhere, working part-time at a book store.

All of this happened in about six months. About 2 months into it, before the divorce is finalized, Mike had called her sister and said "Terry is out of control, we have to do something" but it was all futile. Had they been able to institutionalize her and stabilize her, she might still be living across the street with a manageable mortgage and some cash in the bank. But because it was so impossible, her life is basically over. Totally broke, divorced, career lost, friends alienated.

Re:First, do no harm

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there are already provisions in the law to place a 72 hour hold on anyone who may be a danger to themselves or others.

The threat of a 4-hour hold will keep people from seeking mental health when they may need it most.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctors get an awful lot of trust, much of it deserved and most of it necessary, given what they do, but seeing a doctor shouldn't mean risking my freedom. Even temporarily.

Is that so? So, if you present with symptoms typical for Ebola, you should be free to leave (and thus endanger a potentially huge number of people) if you want?

I vehemently disagree. Your (and my) right to freedom ends when you endanger others. Because, you know, others have rights too.

Yeah, sure, give them the credit.

[bistromath007]

When the same sort of legislation was being pushed in Massachusetts, I personally delivered a speech against it before the Joint Committee on Mental Health. I was there with an army of other mentally ill people, their friends, their loved ones, and even some of their doctors, standing against this dangerous breach of our civil rights.

The speech is here, in the block-quoted portion, sandwiched in a more detailed discussion of the issue. Don't let anyone frame this as the agenda of some cult. I believe in psychiatry, I wouldn't be alive without it, but this legislation is abhorrent.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[squiggleslash]

I initially agreed with you, but then saw that they were talking only about the ability to detain a patient for a maximum of four hours. That seems reasonable, and unlikely to be seriously abused.

Re:Can';t say I disagree

[squiggleslash]

The Baker Act would already give them that fear.

The police are already called in on a regular basis to deal with patients whose guardians (be that family or whatever) have lost control of them, and frequently this has deadly results as handling psychiatric patients isn't something law enforcement does well or are trained to do. Substituting medical professionals, and having a four hour limit to prevent abuse, seems a fairly big improvement on the status quo.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[Rich0]

Because, you know, others have rights too.

This is America. If you feel endangered, remember the second amendment.

It was self-defense your honor. I saw him rub his nose and sneeze.

Re:Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

Psychiatrists are medical doctors.

Re:First, do no harm

[gtall]

This is the same governor who assigned some of the Texas National Guard to observe the Jade Helm military exercises in the southwest because he had been convinced that it might represent a threat to Texas. The idea was that Obama was using Jade Helm as a trial run for martial law before he declared himself President for Life. I wish I were making this up.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[squiggleslash]

I didn't miss it actually, it's something I thought was blatantly obvious. Law enforcement evaluating the situation after four hours is an entirely reasonable thing to do. And law enforcement is going to mighty pissed if a doctor keeps detaining patients abusively.

The situation right now is when patients start having obvious problems (not even anti-social ones, just leaving their families supervision, for example, when they've demonstrated they can't take care of themselves) that law enforcement gets called immediately, with frequently devastating results. Police aren't trained to handle mentally ill people, and often misjudge the situation and resort to lethal force.

That is, the police kill mentally ill people on a regular basis.

Having a doctor be the first line of patient defense is fundamentally a good idea. The doctor has a chance to evaluate the situation, to calm down the patient, and ensure the situation is safe before police are involved.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[MightyMartian]

The real lesson here is that of $cientologists are going to continue behaving like a political action group, their tax exempt status should be revoked.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[squiggleslash]

No, your point is wrong because the only people who have the legal right to do it are terrible at doing so. That is, the police regularly kill harmless mentally ill people they've been asked to detain for their own protection.

Look, it's four hours, and after that the patient has to be released or law enforcement involved (to assess, not to kill.) If a doctor starts using that already weak power abusively, they'll find themselves seeing LE's bad side. It's a good idea. Lives will be saved, and the system is difficult to abuse.