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Sister locked up and forgotten[UK-70 Years!]
The Sun ^ | 27 Sep 2007 | Guy Patrick

Posted on 09/30/2007 12:46:27 PM PDT by BGHater

A WOMAN was locked up and “lost” for 70 years after being wrongly accused of stealing 13p.

Jean Gambell, 85, was “certified” indefinitely in 1937 over claims she had taken the cash while cleaning at a doctor’s surgery.

The money was found — but Jean still spent 70 years in a maze of care institutions.

She was “found” when brothers Alan, 66, and David, 63 — who thought she was dead — read a letter sent by a care home to their mother, who died 25 years ago.

David said: “I was about to throw it in the bin when I saw a name in the corner — Jean Gambell. I rang and they said our sister was there.”

The two brothers travelled from their homes in Liverpool to see Jean at the home in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Staff warned them she was deaf and may not remember them.

David said: “We were very nervous. We wrote on a piece of card ‘Hello Jean, we’re your brothers’. But she took one look at us and said, ‘Hello Alan, hello David’ — and flung her arms around us.”

He added: “Nowadays there are appeals — but back then a doctor could sign away a life with the stroke of a pen.

“They basically locked her up and threw away the key and she was stuck in the system.

“She just got moved from one institution to another.

“What a waste of a poor, innocent girl’s life.”

Jean had a stroke after meeting her brothers, believed to have been sparked by the shock of the reunion. She is said to be recovering.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: bigbrother; prison; sister; uk
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To: theBuckwheat

It isn’t an indictment of the UK’s implemenation of government health care. It is an indictment of ALL governments’ health care systemic abuses.

Forced sterilization went through our courts and was part of the eugenics movement.

Putting them in charge of all of society’s medical care/payments/options only opens the door for it to happen again.

The murder campaign in Nazi Germany began with those in hospitals. There were people asking “how can the State have such nice places for idiots and terminal people when others are starving?”.

The State does not always look out for our best interest. They look out for the bottom line and easiest solution sometimes.


21 posted on 09/30/2007 1:23:12 PM PDT by weegee (NO THIRD TERM. America does not need another unconstitutional Clinton co-presidency.)
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To: Pontiac

You are not supposed to notice such things.


22 posted on 09/30/2007 1:24:01 PM PDT by A knight without armor
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To: theBuckwheat

Precisely. Such things CAN happen here. And with John Edwards pushing for mandatory government health care, including mandatory mental health screening, they will.


23 posted on 09/30/2007 1:24:32 PM PDT by Mountain Troll
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To: Snapping Turtle
What I take from this is, if you get stuck in “the system,” you have given away any hope of living your life without intrusion and interference by complete strangers who care little about you.

This woman had to have numerous doctors assigned to her case over 70 years of commitment.

It is totally incomprehensible that in those 70 years that none of them ever suspected that she was not mentally incompetent.

It is my suspicion that there was probably financial incentive for that hospital and the doctors to keep committed patients in the hospital.

I agree that the doctors cared less about this unfortunate woman than they did about their own financial gain.

24 posted on 09/30/2007 1:28:40 PM PDT by Pontiac (Patriotism is the natural consequence of having a free mind in a free society.)
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To: A knight without armor

Sorry I am an incurable busybody;)


25 posted on 09/30/2007 1:31:41 PM PDT by Pontiac (Patriotism is the natural consequence of having a free mind in a free society.)
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To: theBuckwheat
Before anyone posts remarks about government health care in the UK, recall that here in the US we have some incidents to be ashamed of, such as forced sterilization of people thought to be mental incompetents, and the 40 year syphilis test on unknowing blacks (the “Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment”).

Yes, but this was how many years ago? However, they're still finding them over the pond in their socialized abyss.

26 posted on 09/30/2007 1:38:19 PM PDT by LoneRangerMassachusetts (The only good Mullah is a dead Mullah. The only good Mosque is the one that used to be there.)
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To: Mountain Troll
And with John Edwards pushing for mandatory government health care, including mandatory mental health screening, they will.

That is the most dangerous proposition by a candidate that I have ever heard.

Anyone that has ever taken the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) test will quickly agree with me.

Interpretation of test results is everything in psychology. Anyone who says that psychology is a true science is a fool.

Take any of these test on a bad day and you are a goner.

27 posted on 09/30/2007 1:38:46 PM PDT by Pontiac (Patriotism is the natural consequence of having a free mind in a free society.)
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To: theBuckwheat
government health care in the UK

Government anything, anywhere, is guaranteed to create stories like this.

28 posted on 09/30/2007 1:40:45 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (life is like "a bad Saturday Night Live skit that is done in extremely bad taste.")
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To: maica
Here's some more information: Falsely accused woman freed after 70 years.
29 posted on 09/30/2007 1:54:08 PM PDT by xJones
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To: Burlem
An example of socialized medicine, at its extreme.

Is it, though? I am strongly opposed to government-run health plans, but was Britain practicing socialized medicine in 1937 when the girl was institutionalized? This seems more like an example of the sort of abuse doctors can commit when not subject to a system of oversight and checks and balances. Here's an example in the US from 1960 of such abuse, in which a 12 year old boy was lobotomized and institutionalized at the behest of his step-mother.
30 posted on 09/30/2007 2:18:11 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: BGHater
I found a photo of her and her brothers:


31 posted on 09/30/2007 3:05:21 PM PDT by xJones
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To: Pontiac
"It is totally incomprehensible that in those 70 years that none of them(doctors) ever suspected that she was not mentally incompetent."

Yeah there is more to this story.

32 posted on 09/30/2007 3:12:12 PM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: theBuckwheat
And don’t forget about what papa Joe Kennedy did to his own child to keep her from getting knock-up as it would has looked bad for their famous whiskey running family.
33 posted on 09/30/2007 3:32:12 PM PDT by chiefqc
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To: chiefqc

Yes, and Papa Joe had her “lobotomized”...

...ergo, Teddy’s favorite expression:

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”


34 posted on 09/30/2007 3:46:51 PM PDT by Joe Marine 76 (Fairtax, Now!)
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

two people took me to task for my comments. I obviously was wrong just said the first thing that came to mind.
I was always told “Think before you speak” lol, guess I better go back to that lesson.


35 posted on 09/30/2007 4:10:37 PM PDT by Burlem
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To: xJones

Thanks.


36 posted on 09/30/2007 4:30:14 PM PDT by maica (America will be a hyperpower that's all hype and no power -- if we do not prevail in Iraq)
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To: Luke Skyfreeper

How do you get classified as crazy for stealing?
70 years for minor theft?
Maybe we should certify our own felons, and thus keep them locked up for life.


37 posted on 09/30/2007 5:15:21 PM PDT by tbw2 (Science fiction with real science - "Humanity's Edge" by Tamara Wilhite)
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To: Mountain Troll
>>
And with John Edwards pushing for mandatory government health care, including mandatory mental health screening, they will.
<<

Yes, and when combined with laws like the proposed Veterans Disarmament Act (HR 2640), we will see the systematic and automatic denial of some civil rights, starting with the right to keep and bear arms based on such screening. This is made possible by mandated electronic medical records (EMR) which is a vital component to the destruction of privacy and civil rights.

Based on how law enforcement and the legal system treat other mass database records about individual activities, everyone’s EMR will not be anymore private than are electronic toll booth (easyPass) or cell phone location records. All it will take is someone to flash a badge and fax a demand to produce your records. Of course “strong laws” will protect all of us from abuse, like they protected all the people whose FBI files were found in the White House the last time Hillary lived there.

see: Short-Form Analysis of HR2640—
http://www.gunowners.org/ne0701.htm

38 posted on 09/30/2007 5:51:02 PM PDT by theBuckwheat
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To: tbw2

You can get certified as “crazy” for a theft of 13 pence if the system for certifying people as “crazy” is run by evil, tinpot petty dictators who enjoy having the power to destroy somebody else’s life, and if said system does not include protections for those whose lives might be thus destroyed by these kinds of people.

That’s it.


39 posted on 09/30/2007 8:34:35 PM PDT by Luke Skyfreeper
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To: Luke Skyfreeper

Well she wasn’t “transported”. Not that it made a difference.


40 posted on 09/30/2007 8:37:47 PM PDT by bvw
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