And where would you put this woman and for how long???
She can be institutionalized for several days, or even several weeks, then she will be stabalized on medications and released....according to the law ! She will then be “free in society”. If she does not take her medications and deteriorates, the whole cycle goes on again...hospital, stabalized, out.
Unless this woman has committed a crime, we don’t take away a person’s freedom for what they “may “do. We can keep them in most states for at most several weeks against their will, usually its a few days or weeks.
Having said all this, I think the rest of your post was excellant.
There’s no reason why people who are flat-out insane shouldn’t be kept in a secure institution permanently. If medication seems to be working while they’re in an institution, or their symptoms actually subside even without medication, then it can make sense to try, cautiously, putting them back out in society under close supervision, and if that works well for a significant length of time, then without supervision. Back when this nation was founded, it was accepted as just plain common sense that utterly insane people shouldn’t be left to their own devices. How do we imagine that it’s now somehow “unconsitutional” to lock up them up long term or permanently, after proper court proceedings with medical professionals and others testifying?
Frankly, we have a much better handle now on what types of illness are likely to eventually subside and which ones certainly aren’t. Schizophrenia, for example, simply doesn’t go away, and when it’s advanced enough to be causing serious symptoms where the person is disconnected from reality, then medication is not a sufficient answer even if it seems to work, because a missed dose can bring the symptoms back quickly and leave the person believing s/he shouldn’t take any more medication or see any doctors.
There is no legal basis for the claim that society can’t take away a person’s freedom unless they first commit a crime. We do it all the time, and should do it more. When someone is profoundly retarded, they are either institutionalized or put under the care of a legal guardian when they reach age 18, and they are not free to go wherever they wish or handle their own financial matters. When an elderly person has Alzheimer’s and stops recognizing family and friends, we don’t wait for them to kill someone in their family who they mistook for a burglar, before we take away their freedom and have them either kept under lock and key at home by a relative or put them in an institution where they will find locked doors if they try to wander away and will not be allowed access to anything they could use to seriously harm someone.
A physician did stop by to make sure she was breathing and had a pulse. After asking her what the problem was,he declared that she had "communication issues" and walked out with no direction for treatment or referrals. As a matter of fact, not even her next of kin was notified that she was there. She had to borrow their desk phone to call her family to come pick her up.
Although she did the right thing by seeking help in a crisis, that's not what she really got when "help" arrived. Fortunately, her family found an excellent private doctor who admitted her right away and got her the help she needed.
Sadly, people seem to think that the solution is always so simple. Not everyone has a supportive family who is willing to FIND the appropriate care for them. And as we have seen in this case and many others, sometimes the patient simply ignored--sometimes with tragic results.