Update on Karina.

[Gingergrrl]

@eafw I totally agree that CBT and GET are very cheap compared to medical interventions but inpatient psych hospitalizations are extremely expensive (at least in the US) and there are so few beds available that the insurance companies refuse to pay for more than brief stays. This is the part that confuses me- why the Danish Govt is paying for this? I am assuming it is the Govt and not an insurance co?

 

[adreno]

This is the part that confuses me- why the Danish Govt is paying for this?

The government doesn't decide on an individual basis. The clinic is just given a bunch of money.

 

[Sidereal]

In Europe, socialised healthcare systems allow this sort of abuse to take place because doctors can petition the authorities to sanction kidnapping/forced institutionalisation of people. Basically, you get "sectioned" under the mental health legislation. Social workers play an important role in these proceedings.

For the most part, hospitals here are public (i.e. funded by the taxpayer). (Many European countries do also have private doctors and hospitals that you have to pay for out of pocket or use private insurance but I'm talking about the state-run healthcare system here.) Inpatient hospitalisations are expensive but if the family dynamic is deemed to be causing/perpetuating the patient's illness/disability via some nebulous psychosocial mechanism, then it's seen as abuse and a human rights issue necessitating the removal of the patient from the home to place them in an institution where they can be "rehabilitated" from what is deemed to be a toxic family environment.

I do often wonder what Fink and his minion think in their heart of hearts about Karina's case now that they have seen zero improvement (deterioration?) in her condition after two years of "treatment". I wonder if they are so insane as to think that if only they had been able to intervene earlier, before the false illness beliefs became so deeply rooted, she would have recovered. Or do they just rationalise this whole catastrophe away by re-diagnosing her with something else while they continue using their rehabilitative approach on the more ambulatory CFS patients who are somewhat better able to handle the damage caused by graded increase in activity.

Yes, it's like the incarceration of "fallen women" and others who'd gone astray in some way though this was going on way past the 1950s.

This sort of abuse of young women has been going on for centuries in Europe. In Ireland this was still going on in the early 1990s in so-called Magdalene laundries. You could end up imprisoned in one of these institutions for "crimes" like ending up pregnant outside of marriage or having a psychiatric condition. The nuns abused and humiliated the inmates on a daily basis and they were often sexually abused by priests. The movie referenced below is very good although I wouldn't necessarily recommend watching it if you're easily upset.

An estimated 30,000 women were confined in Irish asylums. The first asylum in Ireland opened on Leeson Street in Dublin in 1765, founded by Lady Arabella Denny. The last Irish asylum closed in 1996. In Belfast, in Northern Ireland, the Church of Ireland-run Ulster Magdalene Asylum was founded in 1839, while parallel institutions were run by Catholics and Presbyterians.[8][9]

A mass grave containing 155 corpses was discovered in 1993 at the grounds of a former convent in Dublin.[10] This eventually led to media revelations about the operations of the secretive institutions. A formal state apology was issued in 2013, and a €60 million compensation scheme was set up. The Vatican and the four religious institutes that ran the Irish asylums have refused to compensate the survivors of abuse, despite demands from the Irish government, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture.[11][12][13][14]

The Magdalene Sisters, a 2002 film by Peter Mullan, is based on historical facts about four young women incarcerated in a Dublin Magdalene Laundry from 1964 to 1968.

Senator Martin McAleese's report on the Laundries glossed over[according to whom?] details of the abuse.[15] In 2013 the BBC did a special investigation, Sue Lloyd Roberts "Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns."[16] The Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, and Sisters of Charity, have ignored requests by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture to contribute to the compensation fund for victims including 600 still alive in March 2014.[17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

 

[green_monster]

Health care in Denmark is state run and state owned and state paid for and state everything. It's a totally different system to what exists in the U.S.

Denmark, and Scandinavian countries in general, are extremely big on biopsychosocial stuff and somataform disorders of every shape and kind. Getting 'treatment' for somataform disorders is really easy as there is a clinic on every street corner.

GP's are big on this whole somataform thing as well. If you have ME, perhaps it would be wise not to consider relocating to Denmark.

As for Karina, words fail me. It's just too terrible. Stay strong Karina, you haven't been forgotten.

 

[eafw]

This is the part that confuses me- why the Danish Govt is paying for this? I am assuming it is the Govt and not an insurance co?

Yes, state health care is government (ie taxpayer) funded. But as adreno says:

The government doesn't decide on an individual basis. The clinic is just given a bunch of money.

and this contributes to the way that these closed, corrupt and unnacountable empires get can built

inpatient psych hospitalizations are extremely expensive (at least in the US)

Not so much here, especially for low security units. Another reason that these "functional/somatic/liason" clinics thrive. They sell themselves as "cost-effective".

 

[Gingergrrl]

The government doesn't decide on an individual basis. The clinic is just given a bunch of money.

I don't get it, do you mean the hospital or clinic itself decides which patients to pay for vs. not pay for? I don't want to get too off track and this thread is about Karina. I am just trying to grasp how the system works b/c it is so different here. I was using the word "government" in place of "insurance company" but I think I am still incorrect!

ETA: several people posted while I was typing so I apologize if the answer to my question was in their response. It's also 3:30 am here (I can't sleep) so I might not be making much sense. I will stop so this can go back on the topic of Karina.

Also insurance companies will not pay the hospital unless they use a parity diagnosis so no one would ever be given a somatoform dx on an inpatient unit. I think I need to stop comparing b/c the systems are too different.

 

[Ren]

I suspect the Danish government has used Karina as a lab rat so psychopathic doctors could have a test subject for their hypotheses and so insurance (public and private) could deny long term disability insurance [and/or proper treatment] to probably tens of thousands of people in Denmark (and millions of course worldwide). Ego and greed.

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EDIT: Info below taken from this thread: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...o-help-karina-hansen.33032/page-5#post-526016

...Danish physician Stig Gerdes has criticized Fink and accused him of conflict of interests, as his work has received millions in funding from pharma and insurance industries. See this post for additional info: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-from-rebecca-hansen.29011/page-2#post-508084 [Note: this post has not been updated. I believe the pharma CEO mentioned has since been let go.]

Fink associate Rick Steele has said,“The common endpoint for these syndromes [medically unexplained syndromes, including GWS, CFS PVS, etc.] is a disability pension. The enormity of this problem boggles the mind. Merely supporting this group of patients financially rivals half of the public outlays for health care or social benefits in northern European countries..."

http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2009/fall/online_extras/alumni_dispatches/richard_steele/
http://www.ricktig.dk//klinikken-livet/A Novel and Effective Treatment Modality_JPM 1#4.pdf

 

[chipmunk1]

The year is 2015, and there are horror stories like this. There is no parallel version of innocent until proven guilty here, which means criminals are treated more fairly than our sick.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-far-right-uprising-Norwegian-jail-cell.html

The demands - outlined in a letter sent to the the French national newsagency AFP - included better conditions for his daily walk and the right to communicate more freely with the outside world, which he argues are in line with European rights legislation.

He also demanded that his PlayStation 2 games console be upgraded to a Playstation 3 'with access to more adult games that I get to choose myself'.

Held apart from other prisoners since 2011 for security reasons, Breivik argued in the letter sent in November, last year, that he has the right to a wider 'selection of activities' than other inmates to compensate for his strict isolation.

Would Per Fink allow a Playstation 2 if Karina wanted one? Doubt it.

 

[adreno]

I don't get it, do you mean the hospital or clinic itself decides which patients to pay for vs. not pay for?

They probably get money on the amount of patients they handle. So it's a clinical decision who to treat. The government is not involved in this. The clinic just have a budget and spend it how they see fit.

They can't just stop treating a patient because they do want to pay anymore. As long as the patient is ill, they have to treat them.

 

[green_monster]

Hi Gingergrrl, I understand what you mean. In Denmark the government owns and runs virtually all the hospitals. Almost the entire health care system is government run. The government pay for whatever treatment is needed. Hospitals have a budget based upon how many patients they expect in a year and they spend the government money. That's the best way of putting it. The hospital or clinic will treat everybody in the catchment area. It can't turn people away for being too expensive. It can't go fishing to other cities to bring in more patients. The hospital treats everybody and anybody who lives nearby because that is their job and that's what they are funded for by the taxpayers.

Hope you can sleep soon. Take care.

 

[xrunner]

The relationship between the mind and the body is not a matter of some arcane philosophical academic debate. These theories have devastating real-world consequences for people who are too incapacitated to run away from their torturers/executioners. Theories can and do kill people.

It seems to me that it's not so much the theories but their evil application.

 

[MeSci]

As Karina is an adult, how can she legally be kept against her will in an institution? In the UK this would only be legally permissible if someone were deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, in which case they would commonly be 'sectioned'. Has Karina been sectioned or the Danish equivalent? Sorry if the answer is provided here - I missed it.

 

[Debbie23]

It's beyond shameful that someone, regardless of what condition they have, can be treated like this. It's not even disgusting because Karina has ME and not mental health problems. It's just disgusting full stop.

 

[adreno]

As Karina is an adult, how can she legally be kept against her will in an institution? In the UK this would only be legally permissible if someone were deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, in which case they would commonly be 'sectioned'. Has Karina been sectioned or the Danish equivalent? Sorry if the answer is provided here - I missed it.

I assume she has been deemed incapable of caring for herself (and so have her parents). In that case the social authorities can step in. I'm sure everyone thinks they're doing the right thing.

 

[adreno]

I do often wonder what Fink and his minion think in their heart of hearts about Karina's case now that they have seen zero improvement (deterioration?) in her condition after two years of "treatment". I wonder if they are so insane as to think that if only they had been able to intervene earlier, before the false illness beliefs became so deeply rooted, she would have recovered. Or do they just rationalise this whole catastrophe away by re-diagnosing her with something else while they continue using their rehabilitative approach on the more ambulatory CFS patients who are somewhat better able to handle the damage caused by graded increase in activity.

I read an interview with Fink. He doesn't believe in psychosomatic medicine as in the mind creating physical problems. He is aware that there are real physical problems that can be seen on brain scans, it's just that in his opinion CBT/GET is the most likely to help for so called "functional disorders". He says they actually don't use medication very often at his clinis, as he finds them ineffective for these disorders. I am not defending his methods, but I think it's important to get the criticism right. He actually dismisses a lot of criticism on these grounds.

 

[adreno]

Here's a google translate of some parts of the interview with Fink:

The disease involves multiple systems of the body, he explains that this is a disease which involves the nervous system, immune system and the endocrine system. There is a brain disorder in which a "filter" is broken, so you can not filter the signals from the body that causes the pain that suffering causes.

- We can actually see changes in the brain when we scan patients so happens then something in the brain. But there is a long way to go before we with 100 percent certainty can say what it is the patients failed and why, says Per Fink.

He explains that you do not yet know why some people get the increased vulnerability that makes you get a functional disorder. However, in most patients, there are many different factors involved. Both biological, psychological, social and other factors can trigger and influence a functional disorder.

No medicine can help

at the clinic in Aarhus believed that the road to a better life if you suffer from a functional disorder, goes through talk therapy, where you learn to listen to your body and brain signals, and using graduated rehabilitation, where patients slowly rehabilitator their physics using for example exercise.

And also the method of treatment is the clinic's critics in the chest. They believe that the gradual rehabilitation can be dangerous when you suffer from any of the diseases on the list of functional disorders. Some critics even think that the graduated rehabilitation can end in death for patients. Furthermore, they believe that in that disease from their viewpoint is not psychic, so it should be treated with medication.

- As it is now, there are no types of medications that are certain to help this one group of patients. And when it comes graduated rehabilitation, it is shown in a large British study that there are no side effects or death. Incidentally, there is no long- term illnesses, where to get the better of not moving.

We do not treat with antidepressants

Several Per Fink's critics believe that a course of treatment at the clinic in many cases will result in a prescription for antidepressants. It refutes Per Fink.

- It is simply not true. In the health system, we hear actually among those who use the least medication. But we are investigating whether the drugs that you use in the treatment of pain and depression, also can help some of our patients, explains Fink to tv2.dk.

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/samfund/201...nktionelle-lidelser-folk-er-ikke-psykisk-syge

 

[MeSci]

Here's a google translate of some parts of the interview with Fink:

http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/samfund/2014-04-29-omstridt-læge-om-funktionelle-lidelser-folk-er-ikke-psykisk-syge

Has anyone tried to educate him?

 

[adreno]

Has anyone tried to educate him?

I guess this is the crux of the problem. No one has been able to provide a satisfactory explanation of ME/CFS, FM, IBS and the like, which leaves the door open for the BPS school of functional disorders.

 

[mango]

I'd say Karina's situation is sadly "only a small part" (but not small at all!!) of the bigger picture. I personally don't for a second believe that the people involved think they are doing the right thing for Karina. To my mind, this is clearly about power, politics, money and prestige and a much larger agenda...

Do remember that Fink and his people are masters of manipulation. Read a few stories from patients alongside his interviews and you'll quickly realize that there's a wide gap between how Fink chooses to present things, and the reality of it... how patients are looked at, how they are treated, what sort of treatments they are offered and denied etc. And as always, "follow the money" if you want to understand how something like this can happen. It sure is the stuff of nightmares...

The Extended Reattribution and Management model, also called the TERM-model, is what's at the core of much of this. Read about it for example here: http://www.funktionellidelse.dk/termmodelleninEnglishside1.html

Also, there's the "Bodily Distress Syndrome" concept that they are pushing really hard, trying to get it accepted by the WHO ICD etc.

There's a very informative Facebook group called "Menneskesynet bag Term-modellen og lægekonsulenternes arbejde." where these issues are discussed in a broader sense, as well as updates on some of the ongoing advocacy that is being done. It's in Danish, but I'm sure they would be happy to answer questions in English too. https://www.facebook.com/groups/178532408882649/

 

[CantThink]

As Karina is an adult, how can she legally be kept against her will in an institution? In the UK this would only be legally permissible if someone were deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, in which case they would commonly be 'sectioned'. Has Karina been sectioned or the Danish equivalent? Sorry if the answer is provided here - I missed it.

In the reports I read last year, I remember her parents referring to Karina as having been sectioned - this mirrors the part about the doctors and social worker/s coming with the police to take her from the home, as that would presumably be how they were able to do that from a legal perspective. I believe it happened Feb 13.

When sectioned in the UK, the patient has the right to an independent mental health advocate, a mental health solictor, limited access to a telephone, visitors and to a mental health tribunal (to appeal if they feel the sectioning is inappropriate).

On this basis you'd think that in another European country things would be somewhat similar - there would be access to post, visits and so on. Even prisoners get access to legal representatives and visitors!