Psych Observer – Exposing Bad Psychiatry

From staff and wire reports

AstraZeneca PLC, which has its U.S. headquarters in Fairfax, was sued by Arkansas for falsely claiming its antipsychotic medicine Seroquel was safer than less-expensive drugs and failing to warn of its risks.

AstraZeneca has engaged in a “course of corporate misconduct and misrepresentation” in violating numerous state laws, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said in a lawsuit filed yesterday on behalf of the state’s behavioral health and Medicaid divisions.

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By ALAN GUENTHER
MANAHAWKIN BUREAU

After the deaths of more than half a dozen patients in 20 months, after dozens of staffers were fired for beating up mentally ill patients, after a woman overdosed on heroin while living in the facility, administrators will join Gov. Corzine today to celebrate some good news about positive changes at Ancora Psychiatric Hospital.

“We’re not ready to declare victory yet,” said Greg Roberts, the acting chief executive officer of the hospital. But in an interview on Tuesday, Roberts and Assistant Human Services Commissioner Kevin Martone pointed to a series of positive changes made since the Asbury Park Press began examining hospital conditions on Jan. 6:

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Four young patients said he sexually molested them

A Cincinnati child psychiatrist who is facing sex crime charges lost his medical license this week.

The Ohio Medical Board permanently revoked the license of Leo D’Souza after reviewing a 50-page report on the accusations that several former patients made against him.

A Hamilton County grand jury indicted D’Souza in February on four charges of gross sexual imposition and one charge of sexual imposition. The charges involve four patients, now ages 14 to 21, who accuse the doctor of molesting them.

The indictment does not name D’Souza’s accusers, so it is unclear whether the medical board considered the same accusations as the grand jury.

A hearing examiner for the board found there was “no acceptable reason” for D’Souza to have examined the genitalia of male patients in his office. D’Souza told the examiner he conducted only a visual examination, while the patients said he touched them and did not use gloves.

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CBC News

Despite protests calling for a ban on the treatment, electroshock therapy is frequently used by Canadian psychiatrists to treat severe depression.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) estimates that last year, the procedure, which dates back to 1938 and involves passing electrical currents though the brain to trigger seizures, was used more than 15,000 times in the country.

The figure has remained virtually unchanged since 2002, CIHI says, showing that the popularity of the procedure remains strong.

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Julia Medew
May 12, 2008

NEARLY two-thirds of female patients surveyed in psychiatric wards in Victoria have been sexually abused or harassed by male patients, new figures show.

A report by the Victorian Women and Mental Health Network has also revealed that 70% of mental health staff surveyed by the group knew the abuse and harassment was occurring in public hospital wards. A further 30% of the 42 staff surveyed said the abuse, usually perpetrated by sexually disinhibited male patients, happened frequently.

Network convener Heather Clarke said the report, Nowhere to be safe: Women’s experiences of mixed-sex psychiatric wards, showed that 61% of the 75 female patients surveyed about their experiences in psychiatric wards had been abused or harassed in some way and did not feel safe.
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Is it because the gynecologist Dr. Joseph Roncaioli is severely depressed or is he depressed because he was convicted of manslaughter (surprise it wasn’t full fledge murder) and that he knows hes going to face prison time? I say he’s scared to death to face justice.

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Say goodbye to benzodiazepines and say hello to Anti-psychotics!

URL: http://in.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idINL0869893920080508

LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it had applied to U.S. regulators to sell its schizophrenia drug Seroquel XR as a treatment for anxiety.

If approved, Seroquel XR would be the first atypical antipsychotic medicine cleared for the treatment of generalised anxiety disorder.

Seroquel XR — a follow-on extended release version of AstraZeneca’s older $4 billion-a-year seller Seroquel — was approved in the United States for schizophrenia in 2007. AstraZeneca is also seeking clearance to sell the new drug for bipolar disorder. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler)

Goodie! now everyone would be “hooked” on an anti-psychotics if this is approved by our good friends at the FDA office.

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Asbury Park Press editorial

URL: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/OPINION01/805080594/1029/OPINION

It’s good to see the Legislature putting pressure on the Department of Human Services to expedite the release of psychiatric patients and developmentally disabled residents who don’t require institutionalization from state psychiatric hospitals. Now let’s see some action.

At an Assembly budget committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers criticized the department’s failure to adequately address the long waiting list for group homes or supervised apartments, the poor care being provided at state psychiatric hospitals — problems outlined in the ongoing Press series “Trouble at Ancora” — and the excessive overtime allocation requested by Human Services.

The institutionalized patients, particularly those cleared for release from these horror chambers but who have no place to go, have been given short shrift for far too long. The state needs to act in the short term for the welfare of those patients and in the long term for the benefit of taxpayers by reducing the population, and the required staff and facility space, at Ancora Psychiatric Hospital and other institutions.

Instead, patients with developmental disabilities or mental illnesses who are eligible to live in residential care facilities and possibly become productive members of their communities are stuck in terrible and terrifying conditions. Or they’re under the care of aging parents who worry who will care for their children when they are no longer able.

An anticipated 2.8 million hours of overtime listed in the upcoming budget for the state’s 12 psychiatric hospitals and development centers — adding up to 319 years worth of round-the-clock overtime hours — is particularly troubling. Is every staff member working double shifts seven days a week? Those figures not only sound high, they seem implausible.

Gov. Corzine should direct Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez to sit down with an auditor and Public Advocate Ronald Chen to find a way to allocate the department’s funding more efficiently. With a $9.7 billion proposed budget, only about $12.5 million is set aside to help move 300 people off the “priority” waiting list of 4,900 people into group homes. That’s not nearly enough.

Earlier this year, Chen said moving 300 psychiatric patients into the underused residential care facilities in the state would save the state $20 million annually. The state needs to act, both to save tax dollars and to provide a more humane and respectful environment for one of society’s most vulnerable populations.

Associated Press

AUSTIN — More than 70 employees at Texas’ 10 state mental hospitals have been fired and dozens others disciplined since 2005 over allegations of brutal beatings and other physical abuse, according to a newspaper report.

Disciplinary records obtained by The Dallas Morning News show the violence against patients included chokeholds, headlocks and threats. Hundreds of other employees have been fired for other violations, including sleeping on the job and overmedicating patients, the records show.

There are about 18,000 patients and about 7,400 employees working in the state psychiatric hospital system.

State officials say there will always be reports of abuse and neglect in an institutional setting. And they say they take any allegations of mistreatment seriously. But the records show that as in other state-run facilities, abuse and neglect are systemic, the newspaper reported Sunday.

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