Schizophrenia and Involuntary Treatment in the Case of Malka Magnesia E

1 Introduction Malka Magnesia, a second year political science student with an A average, suddenly re-pairs to the attic of her parents’ home and refuses to go to school or to work. She explains that she has been ordered by her â€Å"superiors† in another galaxy simply to sit and repent. Her distraught family pleads with her to seek medical assistance but she refuses on the grounds that her â€Å"superiors† consider her â€Å"unworthy†. The family psychiatrist advises that exposure to some of the modern drugs has been known to reduce such schizophrenic symptoms within a period of weeks. To what extent, if at all, should the law permit the involuntary hospitalization and drug treatment of Malka Magnesia? To what extent, if at all, would it make any difference if she suddenly went into the streets and started giving to total strangers, large sums of money from her inheritance, because, again, it was ordered by her â€Å"superiors†? And, to what ex-tent would it make any difference if, for the same reasons, she began to fast? To whatever extent you would permit some form of coercion, spell out the criteria and safeguards, which should apply. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: In the next section, the three different stages of Malka Magnesia’s illness are examined regarding the question whether she should be involuntarily hospitalized and medicated. In the last section of this paper, the main find-ings are summarized. 2 Three different â€Å"stages† of Malka Magnesia’s illness 2.1 Malka secludes to the attic The first stage of Malka’s illness, in which she secludes herself in the attic and refuses to go to neither school or work, at first glance seems rather harmless: It is mentioned that she is a political science student with an A... ...lized indefinitely (cf. Gray/O’Reilly 2009). This would be indeed akin to being incarcerated for the rest of her life, something usually reserved for serious criminal offenders. Only her treatment would probably improve her condition insofar that she will be able to be released. All in all, this alternative seems worse than involuntary medication. Works Cited Department of Justice (2010): Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I. (Last retrieved: December 7th, 2010). Gray, J. /O'Reilly, R. (2009): Supreme court of Canada's "Beautiful Mind" case. In: International journal of law and psychiatry, Vol. 32, Issue 5, pp. 315-322. Gupta, M. (2001): Treatment refusal in the involuntarily hospitalized psychiatric population: Canadian policy and practice. In: Medicine and Law, Vol. 20, Issue 2, pp. 245-265.