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Another Medical Kidnapping

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
This story hits home to me, because several years ago I had a friend who had a *severe* reaction to new carpeting. It was so bad, that she experienced a sudden partial paralysis from it. At the peak of the reaction she could barely walk. Fearing the worst, she talked her mom into taking her to the ER, and once they arrived there, she asked the attending physician if he could do some diagnostic tests to make sure she wasn't having some kind of stroke.

When the doctor asked my friend what had brought on the reaction, and she told him it was the chemicals in the new carpet at her mom's house, that doctor immediately pegged her as a psych case and was ready to admit her to the psych ward. She had to call both her doctor and her therapist, (luckily they were both reachable in that moment), and put them on the phone with the ER doctor to convince him that she was NOT a psych case.

It turned out to be a big stressful fight at the ER, to get the "psych accusers" to agree to let her go home. She told me she would never consider going to the ER again, unless she has a medically approved diagnosis.
Wow. I thought they couldn't involuntarily commit you in the US unless you're an immediate danger to yourself or others.
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
Wow. I thought they couldn't involuntarily commit you in the US unless you're an immediate danger to yourself or others.

Unless you are a minor and they remove you from the custody of the people who would legally have to agree to it.
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
My sense is, you can call a public office and leave a message about anything any time you like.
It's your right as a citizen, I believe.

Justina Pelletier’s next hearing is slated for March 17, but a group of Massachusetts lawmakers is pushing for an immediate release.

I say, call away.
 

JT1024

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
Massachusetts
A couple of updates/articles...

Justina's father is brought up on charges for violating the gag order: http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/lou-pelletier-contempt/

Justina's mother collapses during the court hearing where Justina was being sent to a non-medical facility: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/sick-connecticut-teen-justina-pelletier-foster-care/story?id=22668251

The facility Justina was to be sent to is now backing out and the judge may be reconsidering: http://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/

Huffington Post is carrying the story : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristy-balcells/first-do-no-harm-how-we-f_b_4843997.html

Hopefully, this will let Children's Hospital, the judge, and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) know patients and families are watching this closely.

The Massachusetts DCF is already under major scrutiny after another child "under their supervision" has vanished and is presumed dead: http://www.fox23news.com/news/local/story/Mass-DCF-being-audited/Myr2R004EE6cp3_GdMMNTw.cspx
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
UK dept of health does not remotely dispute the existence of mitochondrial disease:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26367220

I feel like sending this to the judge.

ETA: It's interesting to note in the photo in the sidebar the similar "look" the son with mito disease has to Justina.
 
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Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
It's not over til it's over.

"Justina’s father, Lou Pelletier, reached by phone Friday morning as he was driving to the family’s weekly visit with Justina, said, “Obviously this is a step in the right direction.”

He added, however, that he is only cautiously optimistic. He has many memories of Massachusetts officials getting his hopes up for positive changes, only to have something happen that sabotages the plans, he said. The father has previously said that he and his wife would accept some kind of oversight by the Connecticut child-protection agency if that were a condition of getting Justina back to their home state."

(quoted from leela's posted article above)
 

Ren

.
Messages
385
Agreed. I'm neither conservative nor Christian, but I think as a group they do get often mischaracterized currently. Glenn Beck and the Tea Party do not represent reality.

I haven't listened to / read Beck, and so can't comment on him. I do believe the Tea Party has been purposely and falsely vilified in the media, in some regards.

I try to read / follow a range of news - and it seems that individuals who identify as Tea Party, Libertarian, and what I would term US far-left (or left of mainstream left) sometimes share the exact same views on a particular story and it might even be something the mainstream media has ignored. I don't agree with everything any of these groups say, but I appreciate that they often say things that others ignore.

I just wanted to say this for my own conscience and because I think it's important to remember that the neuro-immune community represents people with lots of different cultural experiences and views. And I don't want to isolate or discourage any individual or any group who wants to learn about our story - and how we have been / or are being hurt or helped by various policies.
 
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taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
"Dr. Mark Korson, chief of metabolism at Tufts, has been an advocate for Justina, according to the family, who say they worry lack of proper medical care could be fatal for their daughter.

When ABCNews.com called Korson and Tufts Medical Center for comment, they declined, citing patient confidentiality."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/sick-c...elletier-foster-care/story?id=22668251&page=2


What I don't understand is how did the Boston Children's Hospital doctors get to completely dismiss the original diagnosis of mitochondrial disease by the the Tufts doctors? AND why didn't the Tufts doctors put a BIG fight about this? It seems like they should have stepped in immediately to rescue THEIR patient?


Maybe they did and the Bonstons ignored them. Ive had my doctors ignored and its still currently happening with my states disability service..they completely ignore all my doctors/specialists phone calls and letters.. and I have THREE different doctors supporting me and they say there is nothing more they can do seeing their phone calls/letters have been ignored. (I guess they could go and put complaints in to somewhere higher up but I think most doctors are reluctant to rock the boat that much or situation just becomes too hard for them. Im got a sigh from my CFS specialist when I asked him to write another letter seeing his first was ignored..thou he still wrote another).

The thing is if one is a patient in a hospital, that hospital doctors do not have to listen at all to your other doctors and I think this is what has probably happened in Justinas case. Article says Tufts has been trying to advocate for Justina.
 
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taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
The following message was posted today by the folks on A MIRACLE FOR JUSTINA Facebook page.

"Our #CallTheJudge campaign is working! Call the courthouse at 617-788-8525 or 617-788-8542 to say that you're praying for Judge Johnston to make the right decision and to #FreeJustina."

View attachment 6561

Can anyone tell me what I need to put in front of that number to ring there from Australia?
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
Wow. I thought they couldn't involuntarily commit you in the US unless you're an immediate danger to yourself or others.

Anyone they deem "psychotic" or delusional or having hallunications about anything..they can deem a danger to oneself and commit (pity thou some of those people arent psychotic after all and its just the drs closed mind which is the issue). This kind of thing can end up having anyone with severe ME locked up with their illness ignored (more likely to happen if a hospital has beds it wants to fill!!!) Irronically others with severe mental health issues end up being left on the streets.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
Anyone they deem "psychotic" or delusional or having hallunications about anything..they can deem a danger to oneself and commit (pity thou some of those people arent psychotic after all and its just the drs closed mind which is the issue). This kind of thing can end up having anyone with severe ME locked up with their illness ignored.
I understand your point and realize that it happens in other countries and used to happen here. But more recently we are having the problem of families not being able to get in-patient care for clearly psychotic or hallucinatory patients because the patient is not an immediate danger to the life of themselves or others. To find doctors committing people for thinking they have a reaction to carpeting (as Dreambirdie mentioned above) against their will and that of their family in this decade in the US is surprising.

Unfortunately, children are another matter since child services gets involved and so-called child abuse rather than "danger to themselves" becomes the primary focus of the psychologizers
 

Ren

.
Messages
385
Can anyone tell me what I need to put in front of that number to ring there from Australia?

The country code to dial into the US from outside the US is 001. So (I believe) you would dial, for example, 001-617-788-8525 or 001-617-788-8542.

--------

And regarding who can be locked away in mental wards, at some point I read a brief bit about the Soviet diagnosis "sluggish schizophrenia" which was used to lock up political dissidents.

And from this, I read mention as well that in in the US Civil Rights era perhaps that black men (political dissidents) in particular were labeled as schizophrenic and thus held in psych wards. I don't know anything about this though - how widespread, for how long, etc.

And I don't know the specifics of this either, but as long as homosexuality was labeled a mental illness, individuals in the US were thrown into psych wards for this also.

If it's now generally more difficult to have someone committed in the US (as SOC wrote), I'm guessing it's part of a pendulum swing reaction to psychiatry's abusive history (as mentioned above, plus forced lobotomies and forced sterilization - in the US).

On one the Pelletier articles, someone mentioned a Pennsylvania judge who had recently been found guilty of accepting bribes to sentence kids to detention facilities. Can't recall the details now, but Wiki perhaps said that this case was referred to in a Michael Moore film - and in 2014, a documentary on the case is supposed to be released.

I wonder how psychiatrists are involved in sentencing kids to such detention centers. What a nightmare.