The Gray Monk

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October 06, 2004

Care in the community, or careless of the community?

The news that a mentally unstable man is being sought for the murder of four women and several other serious attacks highlights the insanity of the "Care in the Community" programme which is anything but what it says! The evidence continues to mount that dangerous schizophrenics should not be allowed to live in uncontrolled and insecure "homes", yet mention changing the Mental Health Act and you have a storm of protest from the Liberal Left who evoke images of the draconian regimes of the 18th and 19th Centuries where people with nothing more than a mild depression were deprived of life and liberty for years at the behest, quite often, of their families.

In a reaction to that regime, we now have the Asylums shut and the inmates living in homes on their own quite often in the community. The danger with this regime is that the Act quite clearly says that someone committed, even after committing a crime, must be released into the community as soon as their condition is "controlled" and they are assessed to be no longer a "threat to others". What this marvellous piece of legalistic garbage does is allow the touchy-feely brigade to make the assessment and then to abandon these very unstable individuals to their own devices to continue their own medication regimes in their own way. The social workers who are required to look after them are hamstrung by other legislation which prohibits them from "forcing" a patient to take their medication, so you soon have the situation where the person is less and less controlled.

Paranoid schizophrenics are also noted for their extreme cunning, and there are many papers on how well these sufferers are able to hide their insanity from all but the most highly trained Doctor. So pity the poor health worker who is required to check on the patients' daily medications, can't make them take it, can't demand to witness their taking it, and so must take the word of a possibly dangerously cunning person that they have taken it.

Let us be very clear, the vast majority of the people this Act was meant to free from the Institutions are no threat to the public and probably never will be. The small minority of really sick individuals - and here I must ask myself about the mental health of those who cut peoples heads off in the name of religion - are the ones for whom the drafters of this piece of legislation must take a strenuous exception. Paranoid Schizophrenics are a danger to themselves and to everyone they encounter - especially if there are factors which may be interfering with the effectiveness of their medication. It should not be left to the panels of doctors, social workers, and do-gooders to decide if they are "controlled" and allowed to re-enter the community. It must be subject to strict controls and to strict review. The Act does make provision for a person to be "recalled" if they fail to follow their medication regime - trouble is that by the time the authorities realise this, someone else is dead, someone else is injured, and the patient has absconded!

It is high time that this ridiculously ineffective regime was changed. The patient has as much right to the protection afforded by a properly controlled environment and medication regime as the public has to expect that they will be protected from attacks by people who are mentally unstable. I doubt, however, that this problem will receive anything like the parliamentary attention that the safety of foxes has received as long as this government is in power!

Posted by The Gray Monk at October 6, 2004 09:33 AM

Comments

Posted by: skipjack at October 7, 2004 08:25 AM