Posted by yxibow on January 6, 2007, at 23:03:14
In reply to Re: Patient paid to accept neuroleptic depot injection » med_empowered, posted by Phillipa on January 5, 2007, at 22:34:53
> Med I have to disagree as I saw so many schizophenics off their meds and miserable with voices and seeing things, and once stabalized they were productive in society again and happy and felt normal. Love Phillipa not by force
I too have to disagree. I happen to live near a certain fairly liberal city on the west coast of the US which has become a magnet for homeless feeding, homeless congregation in general. A fair portion of those there are not on medication, are probably seeing things and hearing voices, may be agressive -- because the state dumped its mental health population on the streets in the 60s due to lack of funding. Its a battle thats becoming more conservative as businesses and people don't want "those people" on their stoop, and mass feedings attracting large crowds.
Given a depot injection, and maybe even being paid for it, better yet paid for it in food and some sort of temporary housing not on the bluff parks where they sit daily talking to the air, making a stink and defecating and other lovely things, but somewhere else in the city, instead of using the money to become intoxicated, some people might be well enough to return to some civic oriented job.
Its not a lovely thought for things to be done by force, so an incentive depot injection is better than by force but sometimes voices and intoxication lead to violence. Schizophrenia is a greater than $2 billion problem annually in the US. And by problem I mean the sheer misery that people must endure -- I mean no ill will to anyone on here with a schizophreniform disorder.
The trouble is, once it becomes unruly, eventually they end up in a police cruiser and taken and probably evaluated, given a depot injection and discharged with medication that is never taken and the cycle continues. Its disheartening but that's our system.
-- tidings
poster:yxibow
thread:719688
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070101/msgs/720020.html