From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Milwaukee County's top mental health administrator intentionally houses female patients with men known to be dangerous "because the presence of women reduces the likelihood of the men being violent," according to a county supervisor's letter obtained by the Journal Sentinel.
John Chianelli, administrator of the county's Behavioral Health Division, told county supervisors during a closed-door session last month that segregating men and women would result in more violence.
"It's a trade-off," he said. "Putting 24 aggressive male patients into a male-only unit would increase the level of violence in the unit."
Chianelli's remarks came during a County Board committee called into closed session on April 14 to find out why there are reports of an increasing number of sexual assaults at the county facility, including the rape of a 22-year-old pregnant woman last summer.
His comments are detailed in a four-page letter by Supervisor Lynne De Bruin recapping points he made at the closed session. Two other supervisors who attended the meeting of the County Board's Health and Human Needs Committee verified the account.
Barbara Beckert, director of the Milwaukee office of Disability Rights Wisconsin, said Saturday that the county needs to make the psychiatric hospital safer all around.
"Many patients at the Mental Health Complex are survivors of trauma, including sexual abuse and assault," Beckert said. "We must ensure that they are not further traumatized by being exposed to sexual aggression and, in some cases, assault at the very hospital where they have come seeking help."
Imagine the sheer terror of being a woman housed in a place where you are constantly in danger of being sexually assaulted and lacking the mental capacity to understand what is happening to you, and why.
This is the second time in a week that I have stumbled across stories of people with mental health issues being horribly mistreated in the places that are supposed to be caring for them. I have to wonder if we are identifying a trend.
I am starting to think that it is time for somebody to launch a comprehensive investigation into the safety of patients in mental health facilities in this country. I have worked in the mental health field here in Alaska and I can tell you that WE had very stringent guidelines to follow that insured the safety of our clients, as well as their caregivers. The one time there was a sexual assault we treated it as even MORE serious than a physical assault. How could we not?
Wasn't it just today that Sarah Palin was bragging about the freedoms women enjoy in our country and how horrible Iran treats IT'S female population? Perhaps it is time for somebody to clue Sister Sarah into the fact that there are still places in THIS country where the rights of women are secondary to the rights of men.
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Let me see ... so sexual assualt against women IS NO Violence?
ReplyDeleteMay God forgive you.
http://www.booktv.org/Program/11423/After+Words+Piper+Kerman+Orange+is+the+New+Black+My+Year+in+a+Womens+Prison+Interviewed+by+Ted+Conover.aspx
ReplyDeleteAfter Words: Piper Kerman, "Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison," Interviewed by Ted Conover
About the Program
Piper Kerman, a Boston-bred, Smith graduate, details her experience within the legal system when convicted more than 10 years after her offense. She discusses her incarceration with author and former undercover prison guard Ted Conover.
About the Authors
Piper Kerman
Ms. Kerman is Vice President of a communications firm and a graduate of Smith College.
you know it all started when reagan closed the asylums. after that, the country really never addressed mental health issues the way it should have. now we intentionally house a gender of people with violent people of the opposite gender. wtf?
ReplyDeleteI don't get it - how is this Palin's fault?
ReplyDeleteI don't think Gryph ever said it was Palin's fault. I believe he was simply pointed out that once again, she is clueless as to the reality around her. She spouted off about the freedoms we have, yet she isn't aware of the abuses happening right here in our own country. She hasn't the interest in learning, yet wants to be taken credibly, and it will never happen if she doesn't educate herself and stop yapping when she doesn't have all the facts.
ReplyDelete~~GG2C
No wonder that psychiatrists have the highest rate of suicide than any other profession. Must have something to do with the crazy viewpoint that everyone is just a pile of meat.
ReplyDeletehttp://tiny.cc/ukold
ReplyDeletePiper Kerman's book:
Piper Kerman, a Boston-bred, Smith graduate, details her experience within the legal system when convicted more than 10 years after her offense. She discusses her incarceration with author and former undercover prison guard Ted Conover.
This is not unique to Milwaukee or to Wisconsin. I have heard "reducing male violence" stated multiple times as a reason not to sex-segregate patients in the mental health facility where I work. This is despite clear indications that the women would prefer to be housed and treated separately, and would do better if separated from the men.
ReplyDeleteHigh Times (Of The Month): Female Hormones May Intensify Addiction
ReplyDeleteNothing new here. I had a girlfriend who worked in the Valdez facility in the 70's and she told me they regularly let a couple of the female patients in with the males to have sex because it had a calming effect on the patients. The females were willing participants from what she told me.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a new trend. In fact it is a lot better now than it used to be. It did not start in the Reagan era, in fact they had tortured psych patents way before then with strange experiments, etc. It used to be common practice to put bars of soap in socks and beat the patients because it did not leave any marks. I worked in a huge state pschiatric system. Most units had both male and female patients. In most places they still do with very little problems, most psychiatric patients are not violent. It is very important that the staff watch the patients carefully, which means they have to interact with them and not sit at the nurses station. There also needs to be staff constantly circulating and checking all the rooms, not just for assults, but possible suicides and unsafe behavior. It is true the presence of females does decrease the level of violence, but it is not the job of the female patients to risk their safety for the convenience of the staff. I have worked on all male units which house the most violent and it is dangerous, we had staff killed. But, we also had staff assaulted by females. It is common to have both male and femles on any given unit and interactions between the two do help with diagnoses. Having both sexes together can also be very counterprductive for some patients and there were all female units. I was disgusted by the abuses I observed and complained on every level about it. I even caught male staff having sex with patients who were so sick they did not know who these guys were. My supervisor said she would not fire one of them because he was an alcoholic with 5 kids. I went on a campaign against it and got the crap beat out of me. I then went to the state capital and made them listen to me. They fired the administrator and my supervisor, then sent a man from another state to straighten the place out. One thing that I have studied my whole life is why most people who work in psychiatric hospitals and prisons do not speak up about abuse. As it turns out saying something about it is not the norm.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, this is not a stunning revelation. It's par for the course. If Alaska has a wonderful mental health facility which prevents abuses towards women, then that's the exception, not the rule. Not only the psychiatric hospitals, but the jails and prisons are horrific places for women.
ReplyDeleteNot something I really want to read in the morning when I click on a political blog, either. It just makes me sad and angry, because I know this goes on every day. But how this can be linked to Palin is beyond me. You just said Alaska has good facilities, and she's from Alaska. What about every female governor or politician from the rest of the US? I'm just trying to be fair here and point out the obvious.
Is the whole text a quote, or does it turn into your comment on the article at some point. The whole thing is italicized at the moment...
ReplyDeleteI hope the people responsible for this decision not only lost their professional licenses, but also face criminal penalties. They had a fiduciary responsibility for those in their care; they chose not to care about what happened to the female patients.
ReplyDeleteTo contemplate what a horror it must have been for the women who had come to hospital seeking help from having been sexually assaulted or abused to find themselves being used as pawns and experiments to reduce problems for the administrators is to have waking nightmares.
This is unacceptable on so many levels!
As regards its relevance to mentioning Sarah: when she speaks so blithely about how great things are, how many freedoms women have, and tries to present a caring facade, it is relevant to compare and contrast her views with these situations. She says she cares about family values, she cares about the disabled, that she cares about the rights of women - but she has never done anything to prove that she knows or cares about what goes on. For her, it is merely rhetoric - something to use to polish her image.
I'd have some respect for her if she ever got her prissy a** in gear, got down and dirty and investigated situations such as this - not just as a talking point or a photo op, but really buckled down and raised money and awareness for reform of these situations. Of course, there would be a need for an independent source to monitor whether any monies raised actually went where those monies were supposed to go, but . . . .
She simply doesn't seem to have a clue what other women have to endure, the dangers they face, or the reforms needed in various areas to simply even the playing field between the sexes.
Oops - forgot, for the evangelicals, any mention of sex - even in a gender way - is taboo. Poor babies. They must be running from this story as fast as they can.
That's why, I think, things like this can happen; people don't and won't talk about sexual abuse and assault or mental health issues in a meaningful way. It's time our country grew up and faced reality - it's the only way we can find solutions that work.
Pretty far fetched to say we have good Mental Health in Alaska. The vampires have been sucking the Native Alaskan's for a long time. Fraud, involuntary commitment and you see their product.
ReplyDeleteMy parents put my sister in Charter North in the early 90's. The treat a kid like a piece of meat. I took the route of psych to learn more about people and found that the basis behind psychiatry is that man is an animal. As I disagree with this I look into the drugging of our children and then start judging the sciences based on their final product and what do you have? A drugged, comatose population with the inability to experience life as themselves because people are to blinded by these "Drs" saying they understand whats going on. The reason suicide and fraud are so common is because ethics never really applies when you base a science on lies and still put it into practice. Torture, sexual abuse, child abuse. Once entering these practices you start the downward spiral of justifying the most blatant disregard for human rights and you know how not just the stupid hate being wrong. SOme people wont stop stubbing their toe because its the beds fault, let alone give someone shock therapy or take an ice pick to their brain.
Of course! It all makes sense! Doesn't everyone in America realize that all we women should be are sperm depositories, male pleasure objects, baby makers, and housekeepers who cook???? I hope the sarcasm was evident here.
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of assholes. Some things just make me hate the world...this is one of those things.
Milwaukee continues to be a cesspool of ignorance, depravity and crime. And NO,... this is not "Biblical",... it's a fact.
ReplyDeletethis story made me want to vomit.
ReplyDeleteWhat in the world is right with a Hospital,placing women ,in danger, just to pacify Men? Apparently, men's needs are more important then the assult of Women.
Not this man. SIck psychiatrists!! SIck.
ReplyDeleteExcellent site about: In a Milwaukee mental health facility female patients are housed with male patients because sexual assault is preferable to the increase in violence that occurs when the men are segregated,this information really helped me , I really appreciate it,I will visit when ever i have found the stuff That i have been searching for in all the web for, keep up the great work!
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