Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
Scott, how, short of a totaletarian state, do we force parents to be more attentive, or to make sure everyone with mental illness is appropriately treated (or confined if necessary), etc.? Sometimes all you can fix is the symptom.
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You provide more beds in psychiatric facilities, and more psychiatrists - the mentally ill are frequently kicked out of such facilities during their initial 72-hour observation period, simply because of lack of funding. Additionally, because of HIPPA laws, the patient often makes the decision to hit the streets, despite not being in their right mind. Because of the same laws, patients can ONLY be given antipsychotics while in the hospital, despite the fact that they actually need mood suppressors. They get just enough medication to appear 'sort of' sane when they go before a judge, are then released, then slip back into their mania. Lack of education about mental illness allows this, and that's partially because of lack of funding. Courts are so worried about getting sued for violating civil rights, that if there is any chance that someone is sane, they are released.
You educate. Most of you have no idea that what I wrote in the previous paragraph is even true - few will support, or get educated about, anything that doesn't directly affect them. The jails frequently release inmates from the psychiatric areas of their jails, simply because they lack space and the knowledge that the people they are releasing are on the verge of a psychotic episode (or are actually in one). The jailers are ignorant of their 'patients', and the psychiatrists who supposedly visit the inmates in the psychiatric area, seldom ever show up.
In each of the above examples, mentally ill people are released onto the streets AFTER their families have sought treatment, and then commit crimes (or murders), at which time you can fix the symptom by punishing these people for being mentally ill, rather than treating them.