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The right to choose treatment-without-treatment: respecting civil rights or an unprecedented manifestation of ‘reverse stigma’?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2018

Konstantinos N Fountoulakis Open the ORCID record for Konstantinos N Fountoulakis [Opens in a new window]  and
Kyriakos Souliotis
Konstantinos N Fountoulakis*
Affiliation:
3rd Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Kyriakos Souliotis
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Peloponnese, Peloponnese, Greece
*
Author for correspondence: Konstantinos N Fountoulakis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 6, Odysseos str (1st Parodos Ampelonon str.), 55535 Pylaia Thessaloniki, Greece. Tel: +30 2310 435702; Fax: +30 2310 266570. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Recently the Norwegian Health Minister ordered the creation of medication-free treatment wards as a result of the lobbying by patients’ groups and activists. The idea behind this is that patients should have the right to choose their treatment, but for the first time, with this arrangement, the user/patient does not choose between treatment options; he literally determines by himself what efficacious treatment is. In our opinion this is another step towards a ‘reverse stigma’ which denies patients the right to be considered as such and eventually kicks them out of the health care system, deprives them of the right for proper treatment and care and instead puts them at the jurisdiction of the much cheaper and ineffective social services.

Keywords

antipsychoticsmedication-freestigma
Type
Perspective
Information
Acta Neuropsychiatrica , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 56 - 58
Copyright
© Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2018 

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