Where are our loonie bins when you need them?

Shock horror - the SMH has published a story on how mental patients are attacking nurses and doctors and even other patients (usually sane ones).

As usual, the story calls for a band aid, in the form of more security guards at emergency departments (when did these cease to be called 'casualty'?).

What is the point of doing that? The story mentions two types of problem patients - idiots who have gone whacko after taking ice, and loonies who need a mental bed for a while.

Why are these people roaming around the streets? If they are mad enough to attack nurses, then presumably they are mad enough to attack anyone else, like you and me. Why the fuck have they not been given a nice bed in a lovely secure facility, such as a loonie bin, and kept there for as long as necessary?

I think our problem these days is that no one has the stomach for sticking someone in a loonie bin and leaving them there for a very long time - perhaps for ever. "Institutionalising' people is seen as a bad thing - a terrible thing.

But is it? What's wrong with being used to having an orderly and well run life, even if it means being bossed around each and every day by pushy nurses and orderlies? Face it, some people are born whacko, and others become whacko, and they are never going to get over it. Sitting in a housing commission flat and taking a fistful of drugs every day whilst watching the 'Days of our lives' does not exactly constitute living if you ask me. Yes, I would think it a bit of a comedown if I was forced to trade in my nice, middle class existance for a life in a loonie bin, but these people are not living in nice, middle class conditions. They are living the life of the underclass, and if you ask me, a loonie bin would be a big step up for many in terms of living conditions.

And it keeps them the fuck out of our hospital system and judicial system. They have no place in goal, or cluttering up our casualty departments. Or wandering around or streets having loud conversations with God.

Fuck, we need to rethink how a lot of things are done. Just about every policy idea that came out of the late 1960's and 70's needs to be scrapped.

I can hear the screams of the latte sippers already.