Holding Psychiatric Patients Against Their Will: "Disturbing Reminder of the Company's Dark Past"

Per reports in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald, Florida Medical Center, in Lauderdale Lakes, has been accused of involuntarily holding numerous patients against their will, even though the patients, often elderly, were not a danger to others, but were mainly "confused, paranoid, [or] agitated." The hospital, owned by Tenet, also has been accused of preventing patients who had been admitted voluntarily from leaving. This is one of the uglier stories about hospitals trying to keep their census high that I have seen. But, as this report from thestreet.com notes, Tenet, under its old name of National Medical Enterprises, settled similar charges that it had confined psychiatric patients against their wishes. As a dissident Tenet shareholder group said, this is a "disturbing reminder of the company's dark past."