Update again on Alison - partial victory?

This entry is guest-written by Adinah Caro-Greene

On Friday, Alison had a neurosurgical consult.  She actually has two aneurysms, and they are going to operate.  Of course, this is very scary, but on the other hand, it feels like a partial victory that they are even treating her medical problems at all.  Thank you all for your calls.

The hospital still refuses to communicate with me.  They just don't call me back at all.  I speak with Alison every day, and today, she said the staff took her food away.  She wants people to call her human rights advocate, Mark Seymour, 540-332-2149 and ask why her food is being taken away, and why she isn't treated humanely.  Mark Seymour has never picked up the phone for me, and never returned my messages.  So many dog-and-pony shows in the mental illness industry.

They will not let Alison sign a medical release, because her brother has her psychiatric POA, and her "friend" has her medical one.  Yet, neither the brother, nor the friend, attend any appointments with her, or even call or write with any frequency.  This is a nightmare.  What good is a POA if they just give doctors carte blanche and don't put any time or effort into respecting people's wishes? My next step, once I get Alison's consent, is going to be to try to have the court remove them, for gross negligence.

If we cannot get the brother or the friend to relinquish POA and appoint others who would respect Alison's autonomy, we may need to turn this into a media blitz, like the Shiavo story.  The normal routes are not going to work, and this kind of treatment needs to be stopped.  Not just for Alison, but for all of us who are psychiatrized, and even those of us who are not yet psychiatrized.  We may have won a small victory, but we haven't won the war.