Acceptance and Expectation of Abuse and Neglect in State Hospitals Are a Large Part of the Problem

The Associated Press has a very brief article on the firings of over 70 staff for abuse and neglect including choke holds, headlocks, threats and overmedication of patients in Texas state hospitals.  The response from Texas officials is this: 

“Officials say that there will always be reports of abuse and neglect in an institutional setting and that they take any accusations of mistreatment seriously.”  

Imagine if this sentence read like this: Officials say there will always be reports of abuse and neglect in day care centers and teaching hospitals…”  Would that attitude of acceptance and defeatism remain unchallenged by the media and the public or would there not be a public outcry?  Is it not the case that the media and society in general have written off people in state hospitals as not fully human, not fully citizens, not worthy of a life free of abuse and neglect and is that attitude not reinforced by the prejudice and fear promulgated by Hollywood, the Treatment Advocacy Center, psychiatrists who are all too willing to diagnose violent criminals they have never met for the media and even the American Psychiatric Association which has yet to make prejudice against people with psychiatric labels a priority on their agenda while frequently complaining about the prejudice against psychiatrists?