The German Federal Office of Statistics offers a bitter balance: in 2023, of the approximately 500,000 people throughout Germany that have spent an average of a month in a psychiatric facility, almost 3,000 of them died. Psychiatric facilities seem to be life-shortening – people die five times more frequently inside them than outside of them. Many of the dead do not even appear within this statistic, because they were released shortly before their deaths. The numbers have thus already been downplayed.
On the other side, a feature of mental illnesses is that those who suffer from them are also physically weaker than healthy people. Many psychiatrists argue that the higher death rate is not due to psychiatric treatment. For much too long, however, much too little attention has been paid to the physical problems of the patients: posture problems, chain smoking, poor nutrition – all of this is filed under “side effects”.
This is why the Bundesverband-Psychiatrie-Erfahrener e.V., the German Federal Association of those with Experience in Psychiatric Wards, has declared October 2 to be the Remembrance Day for Victims of Psychiatry.
The association especially criticizes the use of strong psychotropic drugs. The medical side effects, diabetes, sudden cardiac arrest, have been able to be reduced in recent years. These medicines, however, influence the personality of the patients and thus lead indirectly to an increased suicide rate.
Another problem is police violence against mentally ill people. A few years ago, police in Berlin shot a man who was bathing in a fountain at Alexanderplatz and carrying a knife. The man had already been psychiatrically diagnosed.
Psychotropic drugs are drugs, one side argues. According to the motto: if someone gets an injection and just plods along, it is clear that they are going to suffer a depression at some point. And this is an important point, even if there is no proof of this. In the last 10 years, there has been a gradual change in the thinking in psychiatric institutions. Patients are being incorporated in the decision making and compulsory medication is only taking place in exceptional cases – such as when the patients endanger themselves or others through their behavior. Chronic underfinancing, however, endangers the care work: 140 positions are intended to be eliminated in 14 psychiatric clinics in the Ruhr area alone. Added to this are budget cuts of around 5%. In the field of psychiatry especially, time and sufficient personnel are necessary in order to be able to help people.
All the same, it is being decided arbitrarily who represents a danger, criticizes Matthias Seibt, speaker of the association. In fact, in North Rhine-Westphalia alone, some 20,000 people are involuntary committed on the basis of the German Mental Health Act each year – and to do so, a “risk to self or others” must exist. Anyone who has already received legally mandated care can be committed “for their own good”.
According to a study by the University of Siegen, involuntary committals especially affect the elderly, the unhoused and singles. This is, however, also especially a societal problem: anyone who is annoying or doesn’t fit into the system is committed.
On October 2, therefore, a plea is made more open and outpatient facilities so that the patients do not lose their contact to the outside world. Those with experience in psychiatric wards do not have a lobby, they seek to change this with the Remembrance Day for the Victims of Psychiatry and ensure greater attention.
