Friday, September 27

Alison Hymes case: you're on your own Alison

This is the answer Senator Mark Warner sent me:

Sen. Mark Warner's Office
25 Sep (2 days ago)
to me

Dear Mrs. Lima,

Thank you for contacting me regarding  your views on the case of Alison Hymes.  As we work in the Senate to meet the enormous challenges facing this country, including efforts to strengthen our economy, create new private sector jobs, reduce the federal deficit and establish energy independence, your views and those of your fellow Virginians are very important to me.

I am honored to serve Virginia as your United States Senator.  My top priority in the Senate is to provide efficient and effective constituent service to all Virginians.  Please be sure that my office will review your comments carefully as I consider and vote on relevant legislation.

Again, thank you for contacting me.  For further information or to sign up for my newsletter please visit my website at http://warner.senate.gov.

Sincerely,
MARK R. WARNER
United States Senator

Clearly this is a message at the Senator sends for all of those who write to him. It is a form and the blanks are just after the words "you views on _________________ ."this time filled with "the case of Alison Hymes".
It is a propaganda and, as always, a "vote for me" requisition.

I have already published the answer of the Virginia's governor Bob McDowell where it is explained how the state and federal is prepared to leave things the way they are: the patient locked and receiving treatments that cannot be revealed.
There are laws, human rights regulators, lawyers, doctors, judges and politicians working to keep people in the loonies. We know that what happens in manicomios. We know how dreadful, heinous and criminal the treatment given to anyone who is labelled a mental disease is.

Mr. Bob McDowell's answer is shameful and should be used as an example of how the system close the doors to any hold the patient's as a subhuman with no right, no habeas corpus.

Alison has already expressed numerous times that the treatment is making her health deteriorate. But she is crazy, isn't she? So she is not supposed to say anything about what they are doing to her body, mind and soul.

She has the right to feel the deterioration like a kidney transplant three years ago,"after lithium toxicity caused renal failure. Psychiatrists refused to treat her kidney problems, and compounded the issue by prescribing Trilafon, a drug that has clear warnings about dangers to renal function. As a result, she has been having difficulty swallowing and has become physically weak."

I lost hope. I lost hope in campaigning, writing to these people, signing petitions... any of these actions mental health advocates usually do.

It doesn't work. Something has to be done but we are on the wrong track.
What we do is just an expression of our revolt and not a way to effectively take people from the hands of their warders.
Alison is alone. She needs a lawyer.

In the meantime:
"After years of planning and $140 million poured into constructing the new Western State Hospital* in Staunton, the managers introduced the state-of-the-art complex to the community Wednesday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.  (emphasis mine)

Politicians, city leaders and mental health care professionals spoke and celebrated the big day. They're proud of how far treatment has come over the past several decades, and say the new Western State Hospital is a symbol of that growth." (read here)