Surprisingly high number of patients admitted into mental health facilities die, and their deaths are often unreported... why?

Monday, April 18, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: mental health facilities, patient deaths, psych drugs

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(NaturalNews) For years there has been a rash of unexplained and sometimes violent deaths of patients at mental health facilities in Britain and Australia, but their deaths often go unreported, though no one seems to know why.

Earlier this month, the BBC reported that a charity for bereaved families in Britain are demanding that the government look into the way that deaths of younger patients in mental health facilities are recorded. Research by the charity organization Inquest suggests that at least nine young people have died while patients of such units since 2010.

The British Department of Health has said there have been at least four deaths, and the country's health minister, Alistair Burt, said that while he wasn't aware of the figure, he nonetheless backs further investigation into the matter.

"[BBC] Panorama's investigation has unearthed questions about record-keeping and I'm seeking assurances from NHS England that they have the right processes in place for recording any such death and that lessons are learned," Burt, the minister for community and social care for England, said in a statement.

In addition, the department has stated it would meet with the charity and review its research, possibly in an attempt to rectify the discrepancy in figures. But Inquest staff are leery.

Cases severely underreported

"My fear is there could be more deaths. Neither we nor the Department of Health knows," Inquest director Deborah Coles said.

Last year, the BBC reported, Burt said that there had only been a single death of a mental health patient that had been recorded by the Care Quality Commission, while his predecessor, Norman Lamb, had declared no such deaths had taken place.

"Through their own casework and Freedom of Information requests, Inquest discovered at least nine young people have died in mental health units and the true number could be higher," the BBC reported.

In Australia, meanwhile, The Age reported in September 2011 that 36 people had died unexpected, unnatural or even violent deaths in mental health facilities in Victoria between 2008 and 2010, according to government records.

The Age reported further:

Data released to The Saturday Age by the Coroner's Prevention Unit reveals 119 of the 502 coronial inquests held in Victoria between 2008 and 2010 involved people with diagnosed mental illnesses.

Of those 119 mental health coronial cases, almost a third related to the deaths of patients while they were being treated at state-run and private mental health facilities.

Big Pharma playing a role as well

Other figures from the Department of Health show that 975 people under care of a mental health system died unnatural, unexpected or violent deaths between 2006 and 2010. That figure includes mental health patients who were under the state's care who committed suicide outside of the facilities where they were being treated, as well as others who died in car accidents, house fires or who drowned.

However, that figure also includes scores of suicides within the walls of a mental health facility as well, The Age reported.

Big Pharma is also to blame for some of these deaths as well, no doubt. In May 2015, we reported on research that found psych drugs had killed some 5 million people over the course of a decade – a half-million each year – in the West alone.

The research, which was published in The BMJ, also found that psych drugs had "minimal" benefit for the health risks they create.

We noted further:

Researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Centre, an independent drug safety analysis group based out of Denmark, looked at the data on antidepressant and dementia drugs and found that, in most cases, they could cease to be administered across the board without inflicting any harm on patients. The demonstrated benefits of these widely administered drugs are lacking, researchers found, and many patients are taking them needlessly.

Sources:

BBC.com

TheAge.com.au

NaturalNews.com