What rights did these woman have?

Question

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039095/The-British-women-typhoid-carriers-locked-LIFE-mental-asylum-1990s.html

And how complicit were their relatives in this flagrant breach of any rights they had!!!

How sad. What do you think?

Answer 1

They used to lock people in institutions for all sorts of reasons - and unfortunately at that point rights didn't exist especially once someone had been sectioned.

My grandmother was in a mental asylum for over 40 years as she was deemed to be a danger to herself and others - by the time they found a treatment for her condition she was so institutionalised that it traumatised her when they tried to move her back into the community.

Some of the "treatments" they used were innovative at the time but would now be deemed barbaric.

Were we, as a family, complicit - no we weren't however in the 1950's you did what the doctor thought was best - you didn't question whether it was right or wrong.

That's what it was like then and nothing can change that - as a society we have moved on significantly since this time just look at the New Mental capacity act 2005, or the new Mental Health act.

I have known people who were locked up for years for having a lisp, a deformity- major or minor, getting pregnant, having a nervous breakdown, being unmanagable as a child, talking "funny"etc.

It's sad, extremely sad but my familly learnt the hard way : you cannot judge people by today's standards because they were not in place at the time.

Answer 2

How sad?- Very sad

What rights - No rights - Institutionalised end of personal rights, they were sectioned.

Complicit relatives - No - Doctor tells you something is a fact were do you go to argue. They were down as contagious, so not many is any visitors.

The State is at fault perhaps, but I have to say perhaps because they still posed a risk of infection and they were driven insane before the availability of preventive medicine and unable to guarantee the required hygiene.

It's kinder to shoot a rabid dog, so they were treated worse than animals is what I think.

Answer 3

I saw this on the news earlier and was astounded. One thing I did learn is that these women carried the disease without showing any symptoms. That made it even more strange as surely when a cure came along they should have been the first in line. I wont go on to defend this as it is indefensible but could they have become so institunalised that it was the only life they knew. Still no excuse is it.

Answer 4

I am shocked that this has just come to light now and was kept quiet for so long! The poor women were treated worse than criminals, and it's disgusting that it happened in modern Britain!

Answer 5

I can't stop crying and my heart and prayers go out to the family.

Answer 6

Isn't that so tragic. A few years back the BBC radio broadcast an article about some young girls, post war I believe, who were committed to asylums for having children out of wedlock and spent the rest of their lives there until the hospitals started to close. I can't recall the details but I think the parents agreed to this rather than face the shame of the neighbours. Naturally when they were released they were so institutionalised it was too late to adapt, the whole of their lives wasted.

Answer 7

It's tragic. I could never imagine treating someone I love in that way. I would rather have died than be subject to that h**l.I doubt it was ignorance either but more a condescending attitude of the times. What is life without the freedom to live it...

Answer 8

i wonder if men were locked up for the same reason too

my friend worked in a phyciatric ward one old lady was locked up in the 1920's for masterbating she died in the aslylum in the 90's. she just became institutionalised