THIS IS PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT..........(Read on if you care for people with psychological problems; THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE....) Imagine being dragged against your will to a room where you can hear women screaming. You aren’t told what is happening to you. You are held down in a chair, given an injection, have cotton stuffed in your mouth, then given a jolt of electricity through a band wrapped around your head. Imagine waking up on a mattress on the floor half an hour later feeling dazed and confused, only to discover you have soiled yourself but don’t remember why. This is the reality of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), under anesthesia but without consent in India. If you visit a psychiatric hospital in India, you will be told that ECT is administered only to those who have been unresponsive to other treatment or to people with certain mental health conditions. However, our research has found that ECT is being prescribed for a range of conditions and is even used to keep “unmanageable” patients in check. In some hospitals, it is common for all newly admitted patients to go through ECT. ECT is even used as a threat to coerce people to take their medicines or as a punishment for not listening to staff instructions. A nurse in a psychiatric hospital told me, “We say, ‘we will take you to the ECT room’ and immediately they say, ‘please don’t take me to that room, I won’t do that again.’” Sadly, unmodified ECT is carried out in many countries - from Ghana to Turkey - on men, women, and children. The UN’s expert on torture has called for a ban on all forced treatment, including involuntary ECT. India should take the lead in stopping this abusive practice. Read complete article on: hrw.org/news/2014/01/18/dispatches-stop-forced-shocks-india
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 06:29:02 +0000
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