Is what this Psych Ward threatening to minors ILLEGAL, UNETHICAL, and/or perhaps ACTIONABLE in court?

Question by John S.: Is what this Psych Ward threatening to minors ILLEGAL, UNETHICAL, and/or perhaps ACTIONABLE in court?
There is a Behavioral Health Department (Psych Ward) at a U.S. hospital who has an outpatient program for teens that requires them to be at the hospital in day care treatment or therapy for 6 hours a day but not overnight. Teens are not brought into this program by the police, therefore it is voluntary and typically the ones who call for it are the concerned parents of the teens, such teens typically exhibiting signs of bipolarity or potential drug and/or alcohol abuse.

The administration tells parents that the teen patients can leave if they want to. However the teens end up being threatened in private that if they do try to leave, the police will be called, the teen will be brought back, and the hospital will move to have them institutionalized on an in-patient, full-time basis. As a result, the teens do feel like it is a virtual prison and they don’t like it, particularly when the program incorporates a lot of down time just sitting and waiting or rehashing old issues that have already been discussed or dealing in group therapy with other people’s problems which have nothing to do with them.

I know a teen who was wrongly placed in this program with none of the above problems. She is a mild-mannered, charming, straight-A student with no history of discipline, alcohol, or drug problems in school, but her mother lies to her with great frequency, abuses her physically and emotionally, and as dodge to her own accountability, tries to force therapy and even psychotropic drugs on the teen.

So the teen has been forced to miss a month of school for this trumped up hospital program and my question is whether the hospital might be liable for falsely imprisoning a patient under false pretenses. The managing psychiatrist has even admitted this teen is not bipolar or a drug addict but at worst, may have a short term, mild depression. For that, 6 hours a day of intensive treatment for a month would seem overkill.

By threatening the teens with in-patient admittance if they leave, is the hospital crossing any legal or ethical lines as it pertains to patient rights for minors between the ages of 13 to 17? If some adult were to make a complaint to a disciplinary or licensing board, who would they appeal to?

Best answer:

Answer by Jennifer T
I believe there are a few US Supreme Court Decisions that set precedent to this kind of scenario. One is Ferguson v. City of Charleston. It’s not exact, but it has the same principles and issues as what you’re talking about. However, minors do not have the same rights as adults, so I’m not sure how this would apply. I would recommend speaking to an attorney who specializes in medical malpractice.

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