quote:

mental competency hearing

That changes everything. (And sorry about your miserable Thanksgiving, Chas E )

A mental competency hearing is due process; a person can be diagnosed bipolar, schizophrenic, paranoic, hebephrenic, etc., until the shrink is blue in the face, but still retains the right to decide for him- or herself whether or not to take the pills...UNTIL AND UNLESS a competency hearing determines that she or he lacks capacity to decide. A competency hearing is a setting in which the alleged incompetent has full access to representation by an attorney and standards of evidence protect even schizzies and manics from unfair inferences.

I agree completely that if she has been judged incompetent, the court should be able to determine what medications she needs to take (including, but not limited to, lithium, Vitamin C, heart pills, etc), the same as if she were in the latter stages of Alzheimer's. And her kids should have a responsible adult in charge of them, which a legally incompetent person, by definition, is not.

I am completely and totally in favor of competency hearings, and it is the bypassing of them, and the substitution of psychiatric diagnostic opinion (and mental hygiene commitment hearings, which are yet another animal) for them, that I oppose.

I apologize if I have added to your grief or frustration today.

 

Original SDMB thread - Dear Sister, please take your lithium

 

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See my previous post on this same thread

 

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