‘Mental patients isolated for years despite laws’
December 27th, 2008From AP/Washington Post:
Mental patients sprinkled throughout the nation’s psychiatric hospitals are being locked up alone for years despite laws aimed at preventing the practice, because medical workers say they’re too dangerous to handle any other way.
Health officials call them outliers — rare, unpredictably violent people who don’t respond to medication or other treatment. Advocates call them victims of a system that has lost patience and creativity in caring for those who are most difficult to treat.
The Associated Press found at least a dozen patients in various states who were held in seclusion for months or years at a time, including some who were tethered or strapped down for more than a year.
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