Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Equality of action

Since 1983 a legal instrument has empowered doctors to govern the lives of inpatients. In 2007 it became even more coercive and stretched outside the psychiatric ward with new legal powers.

The new powers catered for the incaceration of people who'd committed no serious crime but were at risk of committing a serious crime. New powers allowed this primarily because of the risk of homicide by a mentally ill person.

If forget the figures but it's something like 100 people a year are killed by people with a pre-existing condition.

There's always an unhealthy level of media coverage whenever someone with a pre-existing condition kills someone. It's so much rarer covered but happens more often that the person takes their own life, not someone elses.

When 1.800 people with an organic mental illness were unnecessarily killed what happened? Was the presonse anything like the thalidomide scandal?

What about clozapine? When originally introduced it slayed many schizophrenics. After it was reintroduced it continued to kill. One newspaper, the indepedent, had a story about the reduced life expectancy - even worse than for other antipsychotics.

What about ect? The treatment has killed many. For many it doesn't work after treatment either.

So many dead. So many of the mad dead. With no protections doctors can get away with whatever they want.

200 years ago the treatment know as waterboarding was used on psychiatric patients. Today, in civilised nations, it is deemed illegal torture even in war.

Doctors seem to be saved from the sort of proper oversight. The mentally ill aren't protected either. There is no equality.

A small number of tragic murders by the mentally ill are enough to coerce them enmasse. But when doctors kill them? Fuck. Give them more power.

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We It comes in part from an appreciation that no one can truly sign their own work. Everything is many influences coming together to the one moment where a work exists. The other is a begrudging acceptance that my work was never my own. There is another consciousness or non-corporeal entity that helps and harms me in everything I do. I am not I because of this force or entity. I am "we"