Just as you believe that maybe, perhaps, the tide is turning and the government that is charged with the responsibility and care of those most in need — the severely mentally ill who are hospitalized — actually “gets” it, you read a story like this one.
Raquel Padilla was discharged from a state inpatient psychiatric hospital in San Antonio, Texas and dropped off at the bus station. That and a phone call to a sibling who also suffers from schizophrenia was apparently the extent of her discharge planning. Raquel suffered from schizophrenia herself and also apparently had mild mental retardation.
Needless to say, bad things soon followed and three days later, she was found dead in a concrete ditch. She never made it on the bus.
The family is rightfully outraged:
“She wasn’t capable of taking care of herself, especially in the big city. Even for a normal person, it’s hard to catch the bus. For her, it was out of the question,” said the woman’s brother, Juan Padilla.
Her ability to function was dependent on her medications, and anyone who talked to her could tell she was incapable of navigating a busy bus station, he said.
The hospital’s response? Well, an apology would’ve been nice, but no, this is the government you’re talking about:
Bob Arizpe, the San Antonio State Hospital superintendent, said employees were following procedure when they dropped Padilla off, and a staff member saw her standing in line for the bus on Dec. 20.
Translation — “We followed our procedures, so we’re clear of any fault.” Not, “Perhaps our procedures are deeply flawed and we’ll re-evaluate them. We apologize for the tragedy and offer our condolences for the family’s loss.”
The state’s response was just as unfeeling and embarassing:
[Emily Palmer, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services] also stressed the state is no longer legally responsible for a patient once he or she is discharged.
“They’re not under the supervision of the courts or the state,” she said. “They have a right to make choices.”
Ah, the old, “Well, we fulfilled our responsibility to this patient. They’re free and responsible for themselves once we drop them off.”
Sadly, this sort of “discharge planning” is fairly commonplace in these kinds of facilities. They are overwhelmed, understaffed and perennially underfunded. But it’s no excuse for treating human beings as so much cattle that just needs to be routed correctly.
And frankly, would’ve it been asking too much to suggest that a state worker talk to the bus driver about the individual’s special needs, and watch as she boards the bus and ensures she stays on it until it pulls out and a family member can meet it on the other end? People just discharged are often in a fragile and vulnerable state. Wouldn’t that be the human thing to do, and take an extra, what, 30 minutes?
Apparently neither San Antonio State Hospital nor Texas much cares, because, after all, their procedures were followed.
7 comments
Things like that should not happen in the Union, of course this was Texas.
Maybe the state motto should be,
“YOU ARE WARNED, THIS IS TEXAS YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN”
of course here in NYC our Police Commissioner said of a bipolar man who was tassered of a ledge,
“
Things like that should not happen in the Union, of course this was Texas.
Maybe the state motto should be,
“YOU ARE WARNED, THIS IS TEXAS YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN”
This is what people mean by state’s rights.
The right of the state to abuse those the community does not like.
I’ve been suicidal several times in my life. Each time I was hospitalised (voluntarily) I was discharged within one week with a fist-full of scripts and a “Good Luck to You!” Only my faith in God and the love of my children kept me fighting the desire to end my emotional suffering.
There is a new law that mental illnesses are to receive the same coverage as “medical” illnesses. I’m grateful for this new law, but I’ll have to depend on God for the next year still. Because the new law does not come in effect for 12 months!!! If I had a broken leg would they make me wait a year to get treatment?
Just another example of how mentally ill citizens are treated with no respect nor concern. After all, it’s ONLY IN MY HEAD, right? One problem with that idiotic conclusion — that thing in my head runs EVERY function of my body. Perhaps people could consider this!!
3,000 people a year are discharged from that hospital in precisely that manner. One dies, which is sad, but surely not an indictment.
2,999 didn’t die…..
Of every 3,000 sane people that enters an automobile…how many die?
Warning: Attempt to read property "avatar_manager_avatar_type" on bool in /home/life/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/avatar-manager/avatar-manager.php on line 1092
@Bastiat… True. The difference being that the state has taken on the responsibility for treatment and care of those 3,000 people, which includes proper and appropriate discharge planning.
We do it for any medical procedure, ensuring that if a person needs home nursing for wound care and maintenance, they get it. Why wouldn’t we do the same minimum for someone who has a mental illness, ensuring they, at the very least, get to where they’re going so someone else can look after them?
Indeed, the state may have been technically well within its rights for behaving as it did. And perhaps that’s the point — when did we, as a society, stop using basic common sense (and a little human compassion) to care for folks who just need a little extra attention? An extra 10 minutes spent with this individual may have prevented their needless death. But since it wasn’t anybody’s “job,” nobody did it.
Technically correct. Humanely sad.
This sadly reflects a mental health system where the Golden Rule can be “Don’t die on my doorstep.” Anything that places distance between a provider, a hospital or an agency is sufficient to end both responsibility and culpability. The mental health system is represented as delivering compassionate, responsive, and successful care but all too often we find that persons with serious mental illnesses, especially when it is both serious and prolonged, are just inventory to be palmed off to be someone else’s problem somewhere else. Here that somewhere else was a bus stop.
Those that consistently promote the message of “Recognize, Reach Out, Receive Treatment and Recover” would be well served if they took a moment to actually consider how grim reality can be. That someone died absent a discharge plan is not surprising. That more don’t die when a discharge plan can be as little as “Patient will return to ……” is amazing. Even when a discharge plan appears to be extensive and well developed absent pre-discharge care coordination, and follow-up with both the consumer and post discharge service providers, it can be no more then a piece of paper.
It is important to acknowledge that it wasn’t a Texas hospital which led to Raquel Padilla’s death, it was a team of individual human beings employed in their professional capacities at this hospital who putatively cared for her welfare and well being and prepared her for discharge. There is a difference. We might well wonder if these same professionals did any better for Raquel Padilla when she was an inpatient.
From San Antonio State’s Hospital’s Admission Information:
“The team of professionals will develop an appropriate treatment plan with the patient. If in-patient hospitalization is deemed unnecessary by the treatment team, the MHA is notified and discharge planning is initiated. If in-patient treatment is necessary, the treatment team will continue to provide in-patient psychiatric treatment to prepare the patient for discharge, and/or transfer to an alternate placement.”
It’s more than that. This arose from the Southwestern Insane Asylum moved from South Presa Street now the San Antonio State Hospital (SASH). My grandmother was tortured and killed there. She went because her husband chased other women. No autopsy. She died of tuberculosis and schizophrenia (the elephant in the room?) in 1947. A doctor there was called ‘the butcher’. Fort Sam Houston Army Base contracted there and bio-genetics engineering happened at this American Auschwitz. The criminal bio-genetics corporation performing now is IVF military institute (Chimera). Administrator Robert Arizpe and DHHS Commissioner David Lakey benefit from the financial instruments created from the patient’s treasury trust by there unknowing consent and traded on Wall Street courtesy of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Patients without family contact are the largest targets and the hospital does it very best to cut off all contact with family. It is the biggest fraud in history and spans all industries. This happened with Boysville, as well and where my father was as so ready and willing to help, and this institution began as a boys home with the asylum. Baptist Memorial told my mother that my four brothers died and recently I have come to believe that some of them might still be alive. I have babies taken from me while I was asleep in my home and there are numerous reports of women with missing fetuses and the military has the craft to do this. This happened almost immediately after I left University hospital knowing that I was pregnant and they said I wasn’t and neither did they do anything regarding why I was there either. Methodist hospital did a D&C on me because I stated that I was getting pregnant that I had dead babies in me and this was in regard to the complete lie about tubal ligation and how it is a half-ass procedure and by design. ALL OF THESE HOSPITALS REFUSE TO GIVE ME MY COMPLETE MEDICAL RECORDS. Since I started bashing about this three weeks ago, suddenly the county is beginning to refurbish the building. I don’t think that it will get completed. My grandmother is Mary Engelke Meyer. SASH refuses to release her records and I am attempting to gather enough documentation to write a criminal complaint to exhume her body that it be intact because I believe that she died screaming. Write Yahoo seguinvegan. By: Charlane Meyer, all rights reserved, without prejudice, sui juris, void of fealty.