Italian adoption case III

[Juliet123456]

The last thread says all I need to know about those in the system. It also the most legally dangerous thread I have ever seen on mumsnet. I hope someone has been through the posts for libel risk. It also entirely one sided and biased and makes me laugh.

The defensiveness of those involved in this area will hopefully disappear once we have the openness that JH and indeed many others are seeking and obtaining as the judges increasingly accept that it helps everyone to understand what are very difficult decisions - parents, children and lawyers and social workers and expert witnesses in this field.

It will continue to be important always to get to the facts and where possible publish the facts. I continue to believe that almost any of us could have our children removed if the state set its mind to that. If publishing more decisions and giving rights to parents and those involved and the children to write what they like on twitter, facebook and the like and to let parents and children even when separated communicate and talk about any issues they choose will help then let us hope the law continues down that course.

The amount of times I have heard from professionals 'we are understaffed and only dealing with the most severe cases'. Then that case quickly escalates into a severe case, where it has not been dealt with. Im guessing it is cheaper to deal with the severe case, quick fix, then pass the buck.

Both me and DH have had to fight for any help we've got for our MH issues, can't imagine how little help we'd have got if we were actually in denial about needing it! In a way this case is kind of positive in that she seems to have got some MH help (even if it wasn't exactly what she wanted) and her MH issues were taken into account rather than dismissed - which is often the case.

Cross post claw!

Crisis support is next to useless IME, you go in, fill in one of those tick box forms to say whether you have been contemplating suicide etc. Someone scores it, then you go back the next day/week and repeat until your scores come down. Then you are passed back to your GP. No counselling offered, no support.

MOG I am still fighting for the funding to address ds's mental health difficulties. Organisations for mental health issues for children are literally only offering a set amount of therapy and you have to be suicidal or self harming etc to even get that. Once you have had your quota, even if your difficulties haven't improved it stops and you are regarded as a lost cause.

Spero

Again so true MOG, emergency mental health assessment involves going to A&E where a specialist psychiatrist assesses risk to yourself and risk to others, if high, you are detained, if not high you are discharged with a safety plan putting the onus of someone else to keep you safe.

You are then just assessed a couple of more times in clinic at various intervals, that's it. No help, no support.

Doesn't get any better at adult level unfortunately :( DH actually got told he was beyond help!

I agree with those who think lots of people misunderstand and underestimate the impact of psychosis, and also those who are talking about the inadequacy of much MH provision.

I have a close friend with bipolar whose psychotic episodes are very severe and very frightening (and, to a layperson, pretty indistinguishable from schizophrenic psychosis). She is a wonderful, talented, highly intelligent woman who was diagnosed late in life. She has lost everything: career, home, husband. She disappears for days at a time and turns up in ripped clothes, bloodstained, disorientated . Awful things have happened to her when living rough - she is highly vulnerable and there is always someone prepared to take advantage of that. She has taken numerous overdoses, thrown herself under a tubetrain, tried to set fire to my bed (with me in it). She is, frankly, terrifying and exhausting to be around when having an episode. There is no way at all she could care for children, not with all the support in the world.

Even when she is not psychotic, to be honest, she has been so damaged by years of dreadful experiences and massive plugs of medication, that she is not quite right. She is very sad about not having children, and frequently offers to look after mine, and I would love to include her in our family life. But I can't.

That is the reality of psychotic MI. It is desperately awful, and not remotely comparable to someone who has mood swings, panic attacks or feels a bit blue sometimes.

Sorry, this is jumping back a bit, but Juliet, one of your earlier posts said "I just hope more and more cases where things go wrong or rights are not respected get more and more publicity".

I am absolutely torn about this, and the 'secret family court' issue in general. On one hand, I do believe the wheels of justice should turn in public except where there is a very good reason for them not to. On the other hand, I think that press reporting on what they do get their hands on is on the whole an excellent argument against free reporting... yes it is all very interesting, soap opera stuff, we can all have opinions (including me, that's not a criticism) but ultimately this is someone's life. When this baby girl is old enough and wants to know more about where she came from, instead of just reading the court paperwork, with the facts as far as the court had them, and the judge's comments about how her mother loved her, she is going to be reading all sorts of speculation and drama, from all corners of the internet. In a 'normal' situation there would no doubt be plenty of room for dramatics and opinions from the birth family, but to be multiplied to this extent? I really wonder about the effect on the adoptees, as teenagers/young adults, googling and coming across this kind of saga.

And it isn't hard to imagine that if such stories become common, so will it become common for there to be plenty of the usual sort of rabid idiot internet abuse about the mother, much as I hope there isn't in this case, as I can't imagine it would do anything for her already fragile mental health. Publicity isn't at all an unmixed blessing, and while in this case the mother obviously wanted it, and it would be patronising to tell her she couldn't have it as it would be bad for her - the baby didn't choose to have her background dissected for the benefit of the tabloid newspaper audience, did she.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do struggle with your repeated suggestions that more publicity would definitely be an improvement.

Doesn't get any better at adult level

And it gets worse when you turn into a geriatric adult. The futility of trying to get help for an elderly person with MI left me with mental scars. The medical side can't cope with the behavoirs caused by MI and psych can't deal with all the medical issues a geriatric often has.

I think MIL was the only person ever discharged from hospital during a humdinger of a manic episode BECAUSE she had a hip fracture.

Yesterday's case has two key differences.

a) That it is a contingent decision which only applies if things start going wrong ... and
b) The birth is to be induced which is an additional risk factor when you read the relevant guidance.

I don't know enough about the other details of this case and I am assuming that unlike the Italian case the mother has been correctly diagnosed (which was not the case with Alessandra).

However, I am inclined to the view that this decision was jusitifed whereas the previous one was not. I would, however, prefer that this was a decision taken by women as I personally don't ever expect to have a caesarean and hence I don't think I see this from the correct personal balance of priorities. (as in I am perhaps too unconcerned about a caesarean as I think may be the case for other men).

Evidence for saying that Ms Pacchieri was incorrectly diagnosed, and that it made any difference to her presentation? The mere fact that the law report refers to schizophrenia isn't enough, for reasons explained back in this thread.

Now you're around, Mr Hemming, can we have the response to your constituent's query about what you are doing about funding for social services provision in your constituency?

I have a system for responding to queries from constituents. They have a number of options
a) Emailing me
b) Writing to my office
c) Phoning my office
d) Visiting my advice bureau on Saturday
e) Meeting me in London.
f) Attending a meeting in the constituency

If a constituent happens to be using a public forum or twitter then I advise them to use one of the above methods. Getting proper detailed answers takes some time and I have systems for tracking inquiries so that I can ensure they are responded to.

From time to time I look at things on this forum and in other discussion areas on the net, but I cannot respond to every question here.

I'm not a mental health expert, but my experience of friends with MI is that it is not uncommon for diagnoses to shift over time - from schizophrenia, to bipolar, to borderline personality disorder etc. Maybe I'm doing psychiatrists a disservice, but it does seem as though sometimes these get used as bucket labels. It is not like mistaking TB for cancer - each of these diagnoses has a continuum of experience and different medications may be tried before the right treatment is established.

So I'm not sure that incorrect diagnosis is the big deal he thinks it is. Is he suggesting that bipolar is less serious than schizophrenia, that while it may be reasonable to force a CS on a schizophrenic woman it's certainly not for a woman with bipolar?

Sorry, John, I realise I'm talking about you in the third person instead of asking you directly. Maybe that's because you rarely answer direct questions. But would be interested in your answers.

Ah yes, once again you're too important to talk to us properly. John, if you're too busy to finish what you started, don't bother posting at all. Really. Because it is staggeringly bad manners AND bad PR for you to spend all this time on here while simultaneously telling us you're too busy to do us the courtesy of responding to us.

"Is he suggesting that bipolar is less serious than schizophrenia, that while it may be reasonable to force a CS on a schizophrenic woman it's certainly not for a woman with bipolar?"

It brings us neatly back to the topic of ignorance regarding mental illness doesn't it?

It brings us neatly back to the topic of ignorance regarding mental illness doesn't it?

Aaaaandd... back to square one!

@desertgirl

I totally agree with you. That's what I always said. In this case, despite the publicity was 'voluntary' (the Italian mother gave an interview to a magasine), yet.. was it beneficial to her? For the case, maybe yes. For the future... not at all.

@johnhemming Thank God we're not in your constituency. We'd all hide under a rock if we had someone like you representing us.

@Devora
each of these diagnoses has a continuum of experience and different medications may be tried before the right treatment is established.

Very true.

NO JH you most certainly don't know anything about:

C sections
Any other kind of childbirth
Mental health issues
How to protect a child from abuse or neglect
How to provide evidence for any of your wild assertions
How to respond on this thread to the many issues we have raised

I could go on.......

How in god's name do you assert that the Italian woman was mis-diagnosed - were you present when she was assessed by a GP, a consultant psychiatrist and an ASW (Social worked Approved under the Mental Health Act) were you...................????

As an MP are you aware of the scarcity of mental health issues. Someone has provided a link dealing with that very issue.

SO why would medics want to section someone taking up a much needed bed on a psychiatric ward.........oh wait a minute I get it - they are all involved in another element of the conspiracy pretending that a woman having a panic attack was suffering from a psychotic illness so severe she needed to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act...........silly me - I should have realised.

Will you be making formal complaints against the medics involved in the care afforded to the Italian patient.??????????

Could you by any remote chance be less interested in the 2nd case as there is no mention of adoption as far as I understand.

You wouldn't be interested in the Italian case were it not plugging into your deluded views about forced adoption.

Desertgirl I totally agree with your post. Sometimes I wish the family courts were open so that people could see what really happened as opposed to what they think happens, but I feel very strongly that strict confidentiality should be observed for the children at the heart of these proceedings. Why should anyone else know all the details of the life of these children and be able to relay the facts to all and sundry and to the children themselves when they are old enough to understand, and to exaggerate and speculate in the interests of dramatic appeal.

This for me is the one reason why the family courts should NOT be open to the public.

Maryz>But not a one-size-fits-all "social workers are evil" agenda.
When have I ever said this.

This is a typical "aunt sally" attributing to me comments that I have not made.

The problem is the lack of accountability in the system and I blame more the lawyers than the social workers.

claig>From googling some press articles, the push for adoption in general seems more to do with government than any social workers or family court lawyers.

Claig is entirely right on this. Government policy (since 2000) is part of the problem. The theory of the treasury is that once a child is adopted then there are no additional costs to the state. In the USA children who are "adopted" are actually much like foster children the state still pays the family looking after them and a small number are chucked out when the money stops.

The system, however, does not effectively hold local authority decision-making to account. That allows things to go haywire.

Incidentally the UFTDU agree with me that the Italian case is unprecedented. (they are the Italian equivalent of the NCCL).

I'm not a mental health expert

No shit sherlock.

How in god's name do you assert that the Italian woman was mis-diagnosed

Because he placed upmost importance of a diagnosis of S v BPD and either didn't notice or didn't consider significant the "minor detail" that she was suffering from intrusive paranois delusions?

Which brings us right back to his admission that he is no expert in MH.

JH - You said to lord Justice Wall in 2008 that the entire system was evil, so I assume we can safely conclude you included social workers in that.

I can link you again to the judgment if it's slipped your mind.

So do you remember saying it? Presumably you meant it then, do you still stand by it?

And btw at least two people on this thread are YOUR constituents who have asked you direct questions, repeatedly.

I agree it is most odd that you have so much time to come on these threads but will not respond to direct questions from your own constituents.