Jerry Brown, the Attorney General of California has indicted a doctor, a nurse, and a pharmacist for elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon for forcing high doses of psychotropic medications on Alzeimer’s and other patients to shut them up and keep them in a zombie like state. Three patients died due to results of these wrongful acts.
In Illinois it is illegal to involuntarily force psychotropic drugs like Haldol, Zyprexa, Ativan and even Benedryl by injection on patients unless they are an immediate danger to their own life or someone else’s life and then a court order must be obtained to continue the medication involuntarily.
Cook CountyDept. of Corrections (Cook County Jail or CCDOC) officers constantly request nurses to give such medication to shut up complaints by inmates, to quiet them even though they are not harming anyone and are locked in their cells, and in retaliation for disagreements with the officers. Nurses call doctors on the phone and ask for prescriptions and the doctors illegally prescribe the medication without examining the patients. Even if they examine the patients doctors at CCDOC under the direction of the Director of Psychiatry, Dr. David Carrington, continue to violate ethical standards and the law with such prescriptions when they are not needed and when there has not been adequate evaluations or diagnoses that require such medication. Even if the medications may be indicated, they cannot be given involuntarily except under strict guidelines.
I complained to the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commissions Human Rights Authority Branch that by law must investigate complaints of violations of the Illinois Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code. They sustained my complaint that psychotropic drugs were being given illegally to inmates to shut them up. After the HRA warned Dr. Carrington that this illegal practice must stop, Dr. Carrington and his staff with assistance of the officers are continuing to violate the law. Each act of forcing psychotropic drugs on an inmate/patient without proper diagnosis and without documentation that they are a danger to their own life or the life of others is a class A misdemeanor.
For more details about this “Haldol Menace” see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA2S-oOOJyY&NR=1
Dr. Carrington should be disciplined, his license revoked, the nurse’s involved licenses revoked, and the officers retrained to understand the law and how to properly help in the mental health care of mentally ill persons without assaulting them.
If this was California, Dr. Carrington would be charged with abuse of patients and assault with a deadly weapon and face up to 11 years in prison. Why is State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez doing nothing? Why is the United States Attorney who came to the same conclusion about this medical battery and malpractice doing nothing? We need a public outcry, legislative hearings, and indictments and action by the Illinois Department of Professional Responsibility.
Please complain to:
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, Cook County State’s Attorney, 50 W. Washington, Room 500, Chicago, IL 60602,
Patrick Fitzgerald and Joan Laser, Asstant United State’s Attorneys at 219 S. Dearborn, 5 th Floor, Chicago, IL 60604, and
the press.
This barbaric medical battery and abuse must stop! Injection of these drugs into asthmatics or others without careful review of their medical records and careful diagnosis is malpractice, assault with a deadly weapon, and medical battery. It may cause death in certain persons (fatal laryngospasm in asthmatics) and permanent brain injury. Haldol has now been documented to cause brain atrophy in long term use and has a half life of 8 days in the brain – and leads to serious complications in at least half of people it is given to.
Dr Linda Shelton 