Forced Confinement for PWS?

A court in Scotland has decided that a woman with Prader-willi Syndrome (PWS) should be involuntarily confined to a group home for three years, some 300 km from her flat in Edinburgh. Click here for the story. The woman, who is also mildly retarded, stated through her lawyers that she did not want to go. But the court decided that it was for her own protection and that she needed the constant supervision of a group home.

For those who don't know Prader-Willi Syndrome is a physical condition in which a person always feels starved and hungry. People who suffer from this are unable to control what they eat, as they are always hungry. Those with PWS often don't live past thirty as they eat such an enormous amount that they almost invariably suffer from morbid obesity .

But what good is confining this woman for three years going to do? There is no cure for PWS. For three years, the Scottish Government will be able to, in theory, control what she eats. But what happens after three years? Is this group home going to provide her with skills and methods to help control her PWS? I doubt it.

And a more pressing question is the Scottish Government's confining someone for a physical problem which doesn't threaten anyone but themselves. A sufferer of PWS will eat and won't stop, how does this equate to the government having the right to remove them from their home and force them into a hospital, when they can't be cured? Furthermore, this is not a public health question as her weight gain does not effect anyone else. She is only a danger to herself in a long and protracted way.

Now I realize that the Scottish people do not have the same constitutional rights as Americans. But that doesn't mean that this is right.