Alexander: No more patience for patients
“It is absurd that mental health patients who pose a significant risk to others or themselves cannot be indefinitely
detained under proper residential supervision,” said United Future Law and Order spokesman Marc Alexander.
“This follows yet another example where an indiscriminate upholding of individual human rights undermines everyone
else’s.
“The attack on psychologist Malcolm Falconer – which left him blind in one eye – and community support worker Hilary
Warren as a result of a patients release from 24 hour care in Ranui, East Auckland, two months ago, was predictable and
avoidable. It did not have to happen.
“This patient had a history of violence having attacked before in 2001
“Dangerous mentally ill patients who need round the clock supervision should never be allowed to stray from that
supervision. How can anyone argue that such patients’ human rights should be upheld over everyone else’s whose own
rights are subsequently put at risk?
“At some point we have to understand that not everyone should be able to exert their so called human rights when it
clearly risks the rights of others.”