Reaction Paper on Crazy by

Ha Song Pham PSYCH 252 02/17/2012 Reaction Paper 1 on Crazy When talking about prison, bingle usually thinks of deuce kinds of people, the guards and the prisoners. nevertheless(prenominal) nowa twenty-four hourss, when 16% of inmates shed serious and persistent ami qualified ill fortuneness, it is non affect to insure psychiatrists working in prisons. The Miami-Dade County Pretrial Detention Center mentioned in Crazy was non an exception. On the ninth for of Miami shut up, we found mentally ill prisoners, guards, Dr. Poitier who was the chief psychiatrist of the jail, and the nurses.The medical staff and the prison officers hold turnabout viewpoints about how the inmates should be treated. The great conflicts and complications in the midst of the comelyice system and the mental health system had made the job of the psychiatrists in prisons crossways the coupled States an extremely difficult task. Dr. Poitier and nurses on the ninth floor of Miami jail worked day-by- day in a in reality unhygienic condition The air in C wings stinks. It is a putrefied scent, a blending of urine expectorant, persperition, excrement, blood, flatulence, and change and discarded jailhouse food.When the jails antiquated air t apiece breaks down during the summer, which it often does, some officers claim C wings pink wall actually sweats. Its decades of filth and grime glittering up, rising through coat of paint. I admire how one could be expected to live, let alone work in a condition as much(prenominal). Under such horrible conditions, I wonder how effective the unsexs were doing their job. And tied(p) if they were difficult to do the best they could, I gullt think the inmates conditions could overtake any give way when they did not even get to live in basic living condition which has a standard level of hygiene.If the states were paying for the psychiatrists to treat the inmates, the first matter they should have thought about was the working conditi ons of the doctors and the living conditions of the inmates because those played a cay role in the efficiency of ones job and the recuperation of ones disorder. In addition to the sad working conditions, the medical staff were not treated well by both the officers and the inmates. The nurses got screamed at, threatened, and humiliated. In Crazy, Earley told the incident of one nurse having a prisoner toss a cup of feces and urine at her.Nevertheless, the nurse did not dispense with the job for she understood that she could not take anything personally at her work. closely of the nurses were women. Inmates frequently masturbated in front of them. They did not get any surety from such hazard because the state attorney thought that it was not a crime that was worth pursuing. Doctors and nurses saw inmates as patients, while officers saw them as prisoners. The officers (or correctional staff as referred to in Crazy) treated the inmates very sternly when the doctors were not arou nd.Due to the opinions that were at two extremes with each another(prenominal), the efforts to ease the inmates by the medical staff turned out to be useless by the poor treatment that the inmates original from the officers. On a larger scale, the psychiatrists received very little to no help from the state government. Whats more, they had to comply with the ridiculous, non-sense regulations that were sooner constructed to protect the responsibilitys of the mentally ill. In Crazy, Dr. Poitier had no access to resources. The inmates were booked into jail without carrying their medical records.He had to consecrate medication based largely on what the inmates told him. Plus, he had to follow the Miami-Dade County Public Health Trusts instruction to prescribe Risperdal first whenever possible rather than Zyprexa, which was much more expensive. He had no freedom to do his job even though he received sufficient psychiatric training, while those people at the health institutionalize were only thinking about the so-called economic benefits. Civil right laws such as Baker Act prevented the doctors from forcing inmates to take medication unless they represent an imminent danger or a threat. Dr.Poitier was very disappointed by the Act. He stated that A person who is a chronic schizophrenic doesnt have the full control over his thoughts. He bottomlandt feign rational decision. If you release him untreated back into the community, you arent protecting his civil rights. Youre condemning him to stay sick and a horrible life of suffering on the streets. The Baker Act was particularly complex when viewing it at different angles. For psychiatrists like Dr. Poitier, it hindered them from treating the inmates. They believed that the inmates were not mentally healthy enough to make ecisions about whether or not they precious to to treated. On the contrary, public defenders and civil rights attorney felt that they had to protect the organic rights of the mentally ill. But what if what the mentally ill chose to do went against the wish of their love ones, and negatively affected community. Acting crazy is not a election. The mentally ill didnt choose to be crazy. I couldnt help but wonder what exactly these attorneys were hard to protect hither. Were they trying to say protect a choice that no one wished to make?But after all, I did not experience a mental illness, which would invalidate any opinions I would have about how a mentally ill person would feel or react. In the end, there was a price to everything. One could not expect to do a thing without having to face a trade-off. The decisions should be made in a trend that benefited most people as it possibly could. Even though I was fully aware that the psychiatrists in the prisons were doing their best to help the inmates, I believed it was improve if they understood the job that they were doing involved more parties than them and the inmates.In Crazy, Dr. Poitier pointed out that My first extend to is restoring this mans mental health. But that is not the first touch of the lawyers, or of the judge who will be making this decision. This should be a medical matter, not a legal issue. I didnt think that was just a medical issue. Doctors alone would not be able to help the mentally ill without the support of other forces. Where would they find the resources such as medication, facilities, accommodation to assist the patients without the regulation or constitution that allowed them to do so? It was never one mans business.It took the cooperation of a whole system in order to effectively help the mentally ill who also happened to commit crime. Despite innumerable difficulties and controversies involved in their jobs, the doctors and nurses were getting paid much less than the medical staff in mainstream hospitals. For example, the nurses on the ninth floor earned an average of $2,000 per year less then their counterparts in Miami hospitals. Part of the reason was becaus e they were recent immigrants who had received their conventional qualifications in a country other than the US.Working in the section for the mentally ill in a prison was certainly not their first choice nor their second nor their third. It could be the only option that they had. However, they did not grunt about their jobs. They did not go on strike. They did not sue the states for providing such little support. Instead, they were doing as much as they possible could to help the inmates. Dr. Poitier intercommunicate inmates as Mr. to show them respect. He asked very common questions that a doctor usually asked a patient How are you feeling today? He was treating the inmates as patients who needed help, and did not care whether they were also criminals or not. For him, they were just very ill people who needed medical help. He formerly said Most mentally ill inmates do stupid things, not bad things. Dr. Poitier believed that the inmates on the ninth floor needed help that they would not get there. I wonder if he ever felt pessimistic when he knew these people needed help, and he could give help, but those two things certainly would not happen in the prison. The inmates were unable to understand that Dr.Poitier was trying to help them because of their dysfunction. Dr. Poitier was fully aware that he would not be able to do much to help the inmates because of messiness of the system and the daily conflicts between doctors and prison officers. They were stuck in a place where no one was better off. The question that baffled me the most was why they decided to stay at their jobs. There must have been something great and meaningful that made them almost irrationally continue their work. In Crazy, Dr. Poitier answered this question for me The inmates who end up here have been given up on.But some displace and do get better. And thats the driving force that keeps me coming to work each day knowing I can make a difference. Knowing I do make a difference. Besi des, if I didnt do this, who would? No matter how much trouble and confusion the job has brought, Dr. Poitier and the psychiatrists in normal have managed to put their work ethics on top of everything else. give thanks to them, the mentally ill inmates get the support that keeps them through the days. Otherwise, the prison could actually become the hell hole on earth. It takes a lot of efforts in order to do good in any jobs.But for the psychiatrists in prisons across the United States, they have to go to extra lengths in order to help the mentally ill inmates. However, their efforts alone are never enough, every other force involved in the system has to do their best as well. In addition, it is importance that they all try to come to understand each others job and the reason behind it so that they can make the whole system work for the inmates instead of the current clime when the mentally ill are stuck in the revolving doors of the jails and the hospitals.