Call for assistance- Psychiatric patients- the forgotten class

March 2005, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Dear social person,

(Note: I'm dutch, so I apologize for possible mistakes in English language.)
I'm Jolijn Santegoeds, woman, 27 years old, and i'm taking actions in the Netherlands against seclusion of psychiatric patients. In the Netherlands seclusion means locking up a person with psychic trouble into an isolation room, lonely and without supervision, means low stimulus, with just a bed and something to put your urine and poo in.
It's legal by the Dutch law as the patient can be referred as "dangerous to himself or the environment".
But as a fact it's mostly experienced by clients (patients) as very humiliating, frightening, no autonomy, powerlessness, distrust, oppression etc. (studies have been done).
The use of isolation cells is an old habit since i think 1500 P.C or something, when the homeless. the sick, the orphans etcetera we're all locked up together. Now they just built separate housing for each group. But in fact those groups are still being separated from society. It's a very political and ethic question whether this is right.

In my opinion the seclusion cells in psychiatric institutes do more harm than good (note: by psychiatrical institutions i mean just for people with hard psychic trouble and not the criminal-being psychopaths who have proven to be a real danger). It's a fact that in a lot of countries the 'regular' psychiatric patients (without a criminal record) are locked up as well, because of the lack of ability to regard for them (like money, proper facilities etcetera) especially in poor countries/regions. During wars a lot of psychiatric patients mostly are killed.
And they probably just don't know how to handle patients because the 'treatment' with seclusion of these patients is just a bad habit from a few thousand years ago. They probably just don't know any better.

But there are alternatives.
With a whole lot of well-educated personnel nurses, doctors etcetera the need of isolation degrades.
Getting relatives and dear friends involved might work even better.
It's mostly very hard for psychiatric patients to speak out for themselves, as you might understand.
I was a psychiatric patient myself, but i am reasonably 'cured' now and finishing a Bachelor-study. Still I feel really involved with these patients, so I want to do something.

What I'm trying to point out is:
It's very necessary to speak out about these issues.
Therefore I started a kind of (non-violent) 'activist group against seclusion' in the Netherlands, called: Tekeer tegen de isoleer!.(Dutch website:  http://www.antiisosite.tk ) And we are within a few months becoming an official beneficial organisation (probably june 2005). We already did a few demonstrations and handing out leaflets, collecting signatures. We also organised a debate on the first Dutch Social Forum, october 2004. We are all volunteers. In the Netherlands the results are so far so good. Slightly this social discussion starts to get public.

A few weeks ago an acquintanced professor came back from a study-trip along several psychiatric institutes in Central Europe. What he saw there was very sad, so much cage-beds and so on. Like "the forgotten class". It hurts us to know.
Now we want to do something about it and we are building up a network.

Our first (international) goal is to take part at the European Social Forum 2006 (in Athene,capital of Greece).
We'd like to do an international talking (debate) about the rights of psychiatrical patients, or how to change the situation, or something like that.
I would like to ask if you can help us since we are trying to build a network for this cause.

Maybe you are some-one, or you might know other persons, who can speak with us (publically) about these issues at the European Social Forum 2006. There are hardly any international open debates about these issues. So we think it's really important to organise this, like a social movement.
We would like to know what psychiatry is like in other countries, and how people deal with patients, how patients cope with their treatment and so on. What's the social movement for psychiatrical patients in other countries? We would really like to speak about this internationally. We hope you are willing to share your views with us, maybe you can take part with us at the European Social Forum 2006, or help us by connecting us to other organisations (you can forward this message).
We would be very grateful if you could do so.

I'm looking forward to hear from you,

Yours sincerely,

Jolijn Santegoeds
City: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
E-mail:  onlinerollergirl@hotmail.com
Web-site (dutch language):  http://www.antiisosite.tk