Yeah agreed, odd to not even address that when it's no doubt the first question anyone would have here.

From another article[1] it sounds like psychological issues:

> [The woman's attorney's] filing stated, "She has not acknowledged the existence of her own medical condition. Because counsel is bound to represent the respondent's stated interest, a guardian ad litem would be able to provide representation of her best interests, which are not currently clear."

> [ . . . ]

> The filing added that when "the respondent has joined proceedings, she has spoken out of turn with rapid, disorganized speech."

> It noted, "She has primarily focused on how she dislikes papers coming to her home, and not the import of the process in which she finds herself. She has repeatedly threatened suicide in relationship to papers being served upon her home."

[1] https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article272657405.h...

The US (especially California) basically made it illegal to provide mental health care unless the patient is currently requesting it.

This creates a catch-22 where people that have previously-undiagnosed mental health conditions are denied access to basic healthcare. Worse, even if you were previously certified insane (e.g., for paranoid schizophrenia or manic depression) and have temporarily recovered, it's extremely difficult (impossible?) to sign away your future self's ability to decline medical care, even knowing that you would only do that because of a mental health relapse that makes you unable to care for yourself.

A large percentage of the crazy homeless people you see when walking outside in bay area cities fell into that legal trap (according to workers at our local emergency mental health facilities).

I guess the above now applies to regular health care, since they've decided that imprisoning this woman indefinitely for being sick and unable to care for herself is more compassionate than putting her through a round of antibiotics.

I'm not sure what this even means. "certified insane" is not a thing, and if it were, there are many people who suffer from manic depression who lead otherwise fairly normal lives.

second, in California, a person can be involuntarily held if they are deemed a risk to themselves or others. This is typically done in a mental health facility.

third, you can't really force treatment on anything in the united states, if someone refuses care, the hospital can't just keep you there against your will. Are you advocating for the return of institutionalization?

The bar _should_ be high, but it's too high in California. You can quibble with the imprecise wording above, but in practice the law makes it basically impossible to hospitalize people with severe mental issues against their will. If you ever have to deal with this with elderly relatives, you'll quickly discover that you're essentially powerless no matter how bad it gets.

edited to add: to be super clear: you don't want to make it easy for people to abuse the elderly, which is why the bar has to be high, but there must be a way to compassionately help someone who actually needs help. And there basically isn't.

> but in practice the law makes it basically impossible to hospitalize people with severe mental issues against their will.

This is very literally not the case. In California, hospitals 51-50 people all the time. It's an involuntary 72 hour hold and the criteria for meeting it is not high at all. A professional just has to deem you are a danger to yourself or others. That's the bar, and it's easily met for healthcare providers.

I wondered too, until I read the part about her being from Tacoma

Not being from Washington myself, which is it?

Tacoma is the Gary, Indiana of Washington.

Something about being lower class? I note an article mentioned her needing interpretation services, is her being non-English speaking part of it?

Tacoma is just north of a big military base, which probably accounts for some of it. As much as I loved my time in the military, it was pretty noticeable that the neighborhoods surrounding military bases tend to be rough.

Tacoma has/is going through quite a renaissance and has become IMHO a pretty nice place to live.

Renaissance is the right word. Parts of it are becoming true gems, but a lot is in flux and not everything is coming up. It's a very exciting and fluid time in the area.

What does that even mean?

I stayed in Tacoma once when every single hotel/motel room in Seattle was taken. Just thought I'd mention it as this sub-thread makes no sense anyways.

I've not been to Tacoma, so just taking a guess - Gary, Indiana is a dying/dead industrial town in the Midwest. I believe it was known mainly for steel mills when it was at its peak. These days it's mainly the butt of jokes about the smell of the town. The smell is a very real thing. If you drive through it, there is a very odd industrial smell that permeates the entire town. I used to drive from Chicago to near Detroit on a regular basis, and I could always tell when I hit Gary because of the sudden change in smell. But as far as I know, not much of note has come out of Gary, Indiana in decades. Wikipedia describes it like this:[0]

Like other Rust Belt cities, Gary's once thriving steel industry has been significantly affected by the disappearance of local manufacturing jobs since the 1970s. As a result of this economic shift, the city's population has decreased drastically, having lost 61% of its population since 1960.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary,_Indiana

Tacoma smelled- paper pulp plants, and more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroma_of_Tacoma

I see Gary also had paper plants, but I think it also had a ton of other industrial activity.

post-truth

The words of someone who's never left the I-5 corridor.

Pierce County has quite a few anti-vaxxers.

Previous articles stated that 1) she is an immigrant, 2) English is not her native language, 3) even when provided with a translator she seemed to lack the mental competence to understand her medical condition.

I don't think that's a Tacoma thing. That's just a person in a bad way that's difficult to help.

What I keep wondering is if the authorities can find her family or anyone that could assume legal guardianship for her and get her treatment. She's going to die of TB because she doesn't understand she's that sick. She clearly had acquaintances that were willing to drive her around. Is this a case that no one is willing to come forward for her?

Update: Her son is at least trying to follow up:

> On May 1, a person who identified himself as the woman’s son called the Health Department, according to court filings, and asked if his mother had missed her hearing and when the next hearing would be held. The next hearing is scheduled for June 23.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/us/washington-tuberculosi...

I'm curious why this comment is dead. This is useful information, especially with the edit and link. Is there some kind of political dimension to this story I'm unaware of?

* * *

Or just stubborness and ignorance?

I have more than one family member who could totally do this, and not all of them are religious anti vaxxers or are diagnosed as mentally ill or anything. In fact, I am a little surprised so many HNers see this behavior as unusual.

Treatment takes many months up to two years of many antibiotics at once that can have several intolerable over crippling up to deadly side effects.

Seems like quite the challenge, compliance wise.

I think that would go from legitimate news reporting to whatever it's called when you just want an excuse to luxuriate in hating someone.

Maybe she's a worthless drunk shitbag, maybe she's just not all there and doesn't believe or really understand the problem.

I don't think it matters too much except when I want to use it as ammo. If she was religious, and I am not, awesome vindicating example for my side I can pull out the next time I want one.

Well I don't like how much I would like that, so I don't think it's very valid, and maybe it's correct that they don't go all "let's lift up this rock and gawp at the ugly bugs all crawling around in there".

Maybe they have no choice. Maybe the police and hospitals carefully don't disclose anything like that for exactly that reason.

Thank you for reminding me to err on the side of compassion and understanding!

Aoparently I don't apply the same rules to other hn'ers, sorry!

I think it is possible to report someone's stated reasons for something incredibly stupid without judgment. In fact, compassion depends on listening to what people say about themselves.

It also matters for judging how the system treats someone.