Comment on care and treatment of Daniel Gonzalez

Created: 2009-03-03 11:40:49

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, commenting on the report by the independent inquiry into the care and treatment of Daniel Gonzalez, who killed four people and attacked two more, in September 2004.

“This report is an indictment of the serial blunders and myopic judgement of all the services involved in the care and treatment of Daniel Gonzalez, in particular mental health services.

“It is nothing short of a scandal that a young man was allowed over eight years to be failed time and again and allowed to be left at home so deluded and disturbed that he should take a knife and kill four strangers in such a brutal way and later to take his own life.

“Everyone involved in the care of mentally ill people should read the recommendations of this report and learn that if they do not respond to the pleas for help, and warnings from families, they are putting people’s lives at risk.

“Homicides by mentally ill people like Daniel Gonzalez are fortunately rare, but according to SANE’s own survey and analysis, one in three could have been prevented.”

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