CLEARWATER, Fla., May 25, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a non-profit mental health watchdog established by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz in 1969, is hosting a banquet in honor of World Elder Abuse Awareness month on June 10th at the historic Fort Harrison for the purpose of raising awareness on the rights of older Americans.
According to the national Council on Aging, as many as 5 million older Americans are abused each year with only about 1 in 14 cases reported to authorities.i In 2016, in response to these alarming statistics, CCHR Florida launched a campaign in 2016 to raise awareness on the abuse suffered by the elderly under the mental health law especially the unnecessary and potentially harmful involuntary psychiatric examination of seniors, a process called Baker Acting.
The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) reportsii that long term care elderly patients have an elevated mortality risk between 1.99 and 3.76 times greater when they are relocated.
Polypharmacy, the concurrent use of multiple medications, has doubled in the last decade among retirement-age Americans. Office visits resulting in multiple psychiatric prescriptions rose from 1.5 million in 2004 to 3.68 million in 2013 with rural areas showing the greatest increase.iii
According to the Office of the Inspector General, 304,983 elderly nursing home residents in the U.S. were given dangerous and often deadly antipsychotic drugs, of which 88% were prescribed off-label for dementia.iv
“These are dangerous drugs and the Food & Drug Administration has made it known with a black box warning that the use of anti-psychotics with elderly suffering from dementia increases their risk of death,” said Diane Stein, President of CCHR Florida. “It is time that the psychiatric abuse of our seniors is investigated and those responsible held accountable.”
For more information on the banquet or the protection of elder rights under the mental health law please call 727-442-8820 or visit www.cchrflorida.org.
About CCHR:
CCHR’s mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections.
It was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who brought the terror of psychiatric imprisonment to the notice of the world. In March 1969, he said, “Thousands and thousands are seized without process of law, every week, over the ‘free world’ tortured, castrated, killed. All in the name of ‘mental health.’” For more information visit, www.cchrflorida.org
i How many older Americans are abused?
https://www.ncoa.org/public-policy-action/elder-justice/elder-abuse-facts/
ii Florida Department of Health, Long Term Care Facilities Alternatives to the Baker Act http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/programs/samh/MentalHealth/laws/LongTermCareFacilities.pdf
iii Sharp Rise Reported in Older Americans’ Use of Multiple Psychotropic Drugs, Benedict Carey – February 13, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/health/psychiatric-drugs-prescriptions.html?_r=1
iv Psychiatric Abuse of the Elderly, CCHR International https://www.cchrint.org/issues/protectelderly/
CONTACT: Media Contact: Diane Stein President, CCHR Florida 727-442-8820 [email protected] www.cchrflorida.org