Mentally ill man not admitted to hospital, charged with mother's murder

[Muttocracy]

This is such a tragic story. Failures in our health care system have real consequences.

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090924/NEWS01/909240371
Cayuga Heights murder suspect held in mental hospital

ITHACA -- Two Tompkins County psychiatrists sent murder suspect Ian C. Butler to a central New York mental-health facility after examining him Thursday morning, according to his attorney Scott Miller.

Though he declined to reveal the results of the examination or the exact location of the facility, Miller said that "we have a man here who is not making up his mental health issues."

...

Based on his discussions with the family, Miller said that Ian Butler has a long history of mental illness, and that he and Carol Butler tried unsuccessfully to have him admitted to Cayuga Medical Center about 12 hours before she was found dead.

Butler has about three psychotic episodes a year, and he was having one when they tried to have him admitted to the hospital and at the time Carol was found dead, Miller added.

Butler was tearful and appeared emotionally distraught during his first arraignment in Cayuga Heights Village Court, and repeatedly said he was hallucinating as Galbreath tried to conduct the proceeding. He said that he lives in Harlem, is unemployed and was visiting his family. Galbreath asked if he understood what was happening to him, and Ian replied, "I kind of do. I'm going to ---ing jail."

After cautioning him not to say anything if he was hallucinating, Galbreath said he wasn't confident Butler understood what was happening and adjourned the arraignment until that evening so Butler could confer with an attorney.

...

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. :^( How awful!

[MNDemNY]

2. He had used up his alloted mental health coverage.

He should have purchased a better policy.

[elocs]

3. The same thing happened with my goddaughter when she was 17 and had a psychotic breakdown.

Her mother's insurance (and she has a well paid job with a major Chicago hospital) paid for repeated hospitalizations before after 6 months notifying the mother by registered mail that she had used up her policy's mental health coverage for the year, so they would pay nothing else until 2010 for mental health care.

Rationing. She used up her ration for the year.

[MNDemNY]

4. Damn government run health plan.

[elocs]

6. The irony now is that she is 18 and is on Medicaid, so she is guaranteed mental health coverage. nt

[MNDemNY]

8. That shows you the government can't do anything well.

[elocs]

5. With my 17 year old goddaughter who has schizophrenia I have seen mixed results with the police.

The typical pattern with my goddaughter (17 at the time, just turned 18) would be that she would be hospitalized for a couple of weeks and put on meds and do OK (because locked up on the psych ward she could not get into trouble) and then kicked loose and sent home for her mother to deal with. Then after a couple of weeks home she would take off in the dead of night.

One time she left in the middle of the night and stole a car (she claimed she hotwired it, but the key was in the ignition). She was stopped by the police after running through a stop sign. (I helped her to get her driver's license a year ago and in her right mind she is an excellent driver.) One cop wanted to simply throw her in jail, but the other (actually a subordinate) knew about my goddaughter and argued on her behalf that she needed to be taken to a hospital. He won that argument and she was taken to the hospital.

After another 2 weeks in the hospital she was released and basically the same thing happened again. A cop picked her up for breaking into cars and simply took her to jail. It was the middle of the night and they called her mother who came to the police station with all of the documentation that her daughter had been diagnosed as having schizophrenia and had her medications and had arranged for her to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital that night. The cop that time basically said, "too bad, so sad, she stays in jail until after she sees a judge the next day".

My goddaughter has already been hospitalized 10 times this year at 6 different hospitals, each time for about 2 weeks. She had no continuity of care, different doctors and counselors. Thousands and thousands of dollars were spent by the insurance company and her mother was nearly driven to bankruptcy. All of those hospitalizations did nothing to help her long term. Now she is in a residential group home and even though she is 18 her public school district is paying for it and for her to get her high school degree and to get her life together (this is not out of altruism, but because the school district messed up with her so badly when she obviously needed help).

What scares me now is that she is at that 2 week marker and I just want to see her get through 2 weeks without something major happening that puts her back into the hospital.

[RayOfHope]

7. This happened in my area a couple months ago. A man killed his pregnant wife and young son.

His father said they had tried to commit him several times before for his schizophrenia, but the hospital either wouldn't take him or they discharged him much too early.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. terrible