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August 20, 2008
Patient advocates may endanger mentally ill, public by fighting for patients' right to refuse treatment, some mental-health experts say
On the front page of the Wall Street Journal (8/16, A1), Elizabeth Bernstein and Nathan Koppel write in the Page One column that "[w]ith the help of government-funded advocates, William Bruce," a patient diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, "was discharged from a" Maine "psychiatric hospital against his doctor's wishes," only to kill his mother two months later.
Under "a little-known government-funded advocacy program for psychiatric patients," called the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness program (PAIMI), patient "advocates ... appear[ed] to have fought for" Bruce's "right to refuse treatment, to have coached him on how to answer doctors' questions, and to have resisted the medical staff's efforts to contact his parents."
Created in "1986 to curb abuse and neglect of the mentally ill," the PAIMI program is operated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and "funds protection-and-advocacy agencies in each state." While "[p]roponents of patient advocates say they're essential to protecting the rights of the mentally ill," many "mental-health veterans argue that advocates are endangering" both "the mentally ill and the public by too often fighting for patients' right to refuse treatment."
Related Links:
- "A Death in the Family," Elizabeth Bernstein and Nathan Koppell, wall street Journal, August 16, 2008.
Posted by admin at August 20, 2008 01:04 PM