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Doctors vs. Parents: Who Decides Right to Life?
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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital
Go to this private psychiatric facility, and you might be helped. Or you might be shut in a room all alone and end up like Amanda, with a broken arm. Or dead.
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Doctors vs. Parents: Who Decides Right to Life? (11)
Following surgery, Sabrina Martin's condition went south. And then, her family says, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital set about arranging for her demise.
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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital (9)
Go to this private psychiatric facility, and you might be helped. Or you might be shut in a room all alone and end up like Amanda, with a broken arm. Or dead.
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Do You Have Multiple Personality Disorder? (7)
Years after Sybil, the debate continues
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Doctors vs. Parents: Who Decides Right to Life?
Following surgery, Sabrina Martin's condition went south. And then, her family says, Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital set about arranging for her demise.
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Cleaning Up Foreclosed Homes After the Mortgage Crisis
Junk haulers expand their business in the wake of evictees leaving behind houses in terrible condition
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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital
Go to this private psychiatric facility, and you might be helped. Or you might be shut in a room all alone and end up like Amanda, with a broken arm. Or dead.
-
Do You Have Multiple Personality Disorder?
Years after Sybil, the debate continues
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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital
Continued from page 5
Published: May 8, 2008A short while after getting out of West Oaks for the second time, Amanda was sent to Austin State Hospital after being rough with her siblings and beating her mother with her permanent cast to the point where Loretta was bleeding. It took them three weeks to detox her off her meds before they could evaluate her.
Back in public school in Conroe, Amanda is working to regain some of her lost skills. Being mainstreamed in kindergarten was a nonstarter; she doesn't get along well with kids her age, and she was having a lot of seizures. Now that she is in special life skills classes at Armstrong Elementary with a lot of structure, she's doing better. She can count to ten and is learning shapes and colors. She's stuck at age four right now mentally; it's unknown whether she'll improve. At night, she sleeps in diapers. The parents have learned some better techniques to help calm her.
Her mom and dad say they will never put her in an institution, but they have checked out some other mental health programs in Texas. Amanda has pica as well — she eats dirt and paper — and many places won't take her because of that.
Jim works in vinyl siding and is on the road a lot. So most of the work with Amanda falls on Loretta, a homemaker who now goes to seminars all the time trying to find out more about the mental health system.
They do have help now through the Home Community Based program. Tabitha Etheridge comes for a 3-to-7 p.m. shift five days a week to help with Amanda. They're waiting to see how long she lasts; Amanda has routed a succession of helpers.
They know they won't put her back in West Oaks, but they really don't have too many other options. Emergency room runs usually are a disaster; upset by her surroundings, Amanda runs through the room hurting other patients, Loretta says. They don't want to put her in another psychiatric hospital. An autistic treatment center might be the answer; there are only a few in this area, and funding is tricky. Autistic service dogs are supposed to be calming miracle workers, but they cost $6,000, Loretta says.
She wrote a poem to Amanda, working out some of her frustrations, but declaring her love for her at the same time. It reads, in part:
I hate your disabilities and all that goes with it
But without those disabilities I wouldn't have the Amanda I know and love
You are my Amanda my sweet little Amanda
"The only option I have is to take care of her myself with the help of Tabitha," Loretta says. "I don't know what there is out there for parents like myself, but I can guarantee you it's not hospitalization. You don't know what's going on behind their doors."
Well I don't know if County Judge Ed Emmett and Dr. Santos are from the same planet but several years ago Dr. Santos was my doctor while I had a short stay at West Oaks. He is certainly prescription happy, so prescrition happy that I had liver toxicity from all the un-needed meds he had me on. It is sad that the "good ole' boys Club still exists even in the medical field.
Comment by Amri DeLeon — May 8, 2008 @ 08:21AM
Ouch. There are a lot of people out there that give doctors a bad name. Unfortunately, they tend to be the only doctors that the poor or middle class can afford. Caveat emptor, I'm afraid.
Comment by Jimmy — May 9, 2008 @ 11:07AM
So Attorney Guidry wants to sue someone because the hand Fredrick Williams used to beat Mario to death was broken? You go, boyeeee!!! How dare West Oaks not equip Mr. Williams properly . . . say, a baseball bat, brass knuckles, or maybe a shotgun. And how dare Mario's 'multiple rib fractures, laceration of the heart and injuries to his intestines, back, abdomen, chest, wrist, face, neck, buttocks, shoulders, both forearms and both knees' break Mr. Williams hand. He should sue Mario's family also, for wrongful fracture. It seems Mario was overkilled, Fredrick Williams is evil, and his attorney is retarded. Got a little cut on your head, Freddy? I didn't see any mention of stitches, nor an explanation of how an unarmed patient caused the injury. Self-defense my ass - Fredrick Williams is a murderer and a sissy. He wouldn't have taken a patient that could have killed him into that death box.
Comment by sonja — May 10, 2008 @ 02:26PM
It is unfortunate that our mental health system is set up so that administrators are well compensated while the persons who actually care for mental patients are underpaid, overworked and do not receive adequate training.
Why is it that facilities are allowed to stay open and provide care for patients even after they receive multiple citations? Texas should be ashamed of itself for the care it is providing for children in juvenile detention centers, mental health facilities and state schools. More and more there are news stories about abuse and neglect of children, the mentally ill and the mentally retarded who are under state care.
I don't think that there should be more funding until these facilities are made to invest in their work force and provide employees with fair pay, adequate training and support--you get what you pay for!
Comment by Cassey S. — May 12, 2008 @ 08:42AM
Joyce Winters was the Director or Nursing for West Oaks and she was not properly licensed to work as a nurse in the State of Texas.Dr. Santos is known among some as King George for a very good reason, petty, dictatorial come to mind.
Comment by Sandy — May 13, 2008 @ 01:12PM
It's sad to see a reporter, although not uncommon at all, to not get all the facts and go for representing ratings only. I would think West Oaks does a lot more good then any one wants to admit. The other side or issue that no one wants to admit, or acknowledge, is how greatley disturbed these particular patients were. That is why they were not at home with thier perfect, capable family, and why other facilitys would not even try. Seems to me this reporter and the families that are providing half truths should be sued by every one mentioned in this article!!! It is people like this that are the reason there is so little help out there for people with mental issues. Mabe they prefer they go to jail instead as the criminally insane, which is what they were/are/will grow up to be!!!
Comment by kw — May 14, 2008 @ 04:54AM
DR.Santos is pretty ill himself, a well known fact of anyone who has ever met him.
Comment by kw — May 14, 2008 @ 04:57AM
Sounds to me like the person who wrote this story was on a deadline, had nothing, and went back to re-write some old story she had previously written. Perhaps Ms. Downing would like to do a cover feature story on the chad issue in the Florida presidential election.......again...... I realize that it's the Houston Press and all, but come on- cant you guys write something that is perhaps current news? My opinion is that this article smells fishy - kinda like an attorney thats stirring the pot. Shame on you guys.
Comment by Jack — May 14, 2008 @ 03:15PM
THOSE DEFENDING THE HOSPITAL OR THE ARTICLE HAVE OBVIOUSLY NEVER HAD A LOVED ONE CARED FOR BY THIS HOSPITAL. THERE IS PROABABLY MORE TO THIS ARTICLE THAN HAS SURFACED.
Comment by S — May 15, 2008 @ 01:02PM