Dangerous, Traumatizing, Humiliating and Sometimes Deadly Restraint Chair Still On Every Unit of Virginia’s Western State Hospital

Stay tuned for information on how to contact folks in charge (if anyone actually is) to complain about the acquisition  and use of a restraint chair for every unit in Western State Hospital at a time when the federal government has mandated restraint reduction for all psychiatric hospitals and when Virginia signed on to a federal grant to learn how to reduce restraint and seclusion, letting Western State Hospital “choose” as if it were it’s own fiefdom, which I guess it is, not to participate in the grant nor the restraint reduction program.  Who is in charge here?  A state hospital director or the Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse?  Is anyone monitoring the folks who are supposed to be monitoring state mental health employees?  Virginia Office of Protection and Advocacy certainly isn’t.  They knew about the restraint chairs at Western and voiced no objection and told no one.  Heck, they praised Western in a report a few years back because although the number of restraints had gone up at least they weren’t using 7 point restraints (!) as much.  Nothing to do with the fact that VOPA doesn’t actually hire anyone with a psychiatric disability as they do folks with other disabilities who might be able to give them a clue about these kinds of issues.  Nothing to do with the fact that VOPA didn’t even have their PAIMI council chair on their board like all other states until recently. 

But back to the torture/oops/restraint chair on every floor and unit of Western.  Here are some more links to the dangers of this chair in use at jails and prisons: 

http://www.kpho.com/iteam/9454105/detail.html  deaths from restraint chair cost taxpayers money

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/politics/09gitmo.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin  Restraint chairs used at Gitmo, Western State Hospital and Gitmo use the same device, how nice….

http://abcnewsstore.go.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/DSIProductDisplay?catalogId=11002&storeId=20051&productId=2009003&langId=-1&categoryId=100024  DVD available from ABC on dangers of restraint chairs in American prisons–and note the date, 2000, long before Western bought their chairs….

http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/testimony-of-military-physicians/emergency_restraint_chair.jpg/view  a picture of a different brand of restraint chair at a university human rights center

http://news.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-3/Over-260-doctors-call-for-ban-on-force-feeding-and-restraint-chairs-at-Guantanamo-5880-1/  Over 260 doctors call for ban on use of restraint chairs at Gitmo, but not unfortunately at Western State where they were ordered by a doctor and approved by his boss, a doctor.  

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:R-B2Ux9rcFoJ:www.awionline.org/Lab_animals/biblio/aw6metho.htm+%22restraint+chairs%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=32&gl=us  Research shows restraint chairs cause trauma as indicated by brain chemicals in non-human primates….

Stay tuned, there will not be a test but there will be a letter you can write in your own words to and contact information for  the Commissioner of Virginia’s Department of Mental Health and to Governor Kaine who appointed him.