Monday, February 23, 2015

"They said if I kept making noise, they would drag me into the mental-health ward and diagnose me as having mental illness."

As reported by the CBC, with much more including a video report and documentation at the link

You can also see the video here

Another case of a person being diagnosed as mentally ill for the convenience of the doctors, not to help the patient. Apparently they wanted to put here on anti-psychotics to shut her up.

Alice Zhang says she's being denied a life-saving kidney transplant because doctors at Vancouver General Hospital have decided she is mentally ill.

The 45-year-old mother of two, who speaks only Cantonese, and her family say she has no history of mental illness, and that she was only removed from the transplant list for complaining about her treatment in the hemodialysis unit.

"That's what started this whole situation" Zhang, speaking through an interpreter, told CBC Investigates.

She said doctors threatened to admit her involuntarily under the Mental Health Act.

"They said if I kept making noise, they would drag me into the mental-health ward and diagnose me as having mental illness."

Zhang said that is where she ended up on two occasions.

Polycystic kidney disease



Zhang has polycystic kidney disease. She shares custody of her boys, aged nine and 11 years old.

She needs hemodialysis three times a week, and has been on the kidney transplant list since 2009.

She said a sudden diagnosis of delusional disorder came right after she filed written complaints that nurses were too rough on her injection site.

"They said, 'Right now, we are going to temporarily stop the transplant process,'" said Zhang. Hospital documents confirm that the process was halted.

"Because I complained about them, they said that to me."

According to a psychiatrist’s handwritten notes, Zhang was paranoid.

Difficult but not delusional, says family

Zhang's husband, from whom she is separated, believes doctors are misinterpreting her actions.

"If they don't even understand what she's saying, how can they say she has a mental illness?" said Lea Kwong Chow.

"This person doesn't really have great social skills. Just because of that, you can't say they have a mental illness."

Chow said that in the nearly 20 years he has known Zhang, she has never shown any signs of paranoia.

While a translator attends most appointments, Chow and Zhang said there are many informal interactions without one.

In October, the psychiatrist's handwritten note to Zhang raised concern that she was following a nurse.

"You were asking about her last name. This was interpreted as concerning behaviour," the note said.

The notes show Zhang tried to explain she had been asked to find out the nurse's last name by her lawyer, something he confirmed in a letter to Vancouver Coastal Health.

The same psychiatrist wrote, "The fact that you believe that the nurses are trying to harm you tells me that you have a mental illness ... the nurses are starting to feel threatened by you. Some of this has to do with your complaints about them."

But Zhang — who refused to take prescribed anti-psychotic drugs — said she has never said anyone tried to hurt her on purpose.

"I have never been the suspicious type," she said. "I believe they have violated my human rights."

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