Each year, a small number of people in Vermont are hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital against their will. And when that happens, a court process ensues to determine whether or not those patients can be given medication—also against their will.
Sometimes that process takes several months.
This session, lawmakers grappled with the issue of involuntary medication, trying to strike the right balance between helping people in a health crisis who might not be able to make lucid decisions, and also protecting their rights not to have medication they don’t want forced on them.
Anne Donahue is a Representative from Northfield. She has dealt with these issues both in her committee assignments and as a mental health advocate. She talked with Vermont Edition about the compromise the legislature arrived at.
