Some cases in psychiatric practice are astonishing, revealing many things that science has not yet embraced. The case of the student Gloria, for example, speaks to something that can happen to anyone.
A sudden changeGloria Martinez Ruiz was studying at the conservatory and living an ordinary life. At the age of 17, she woke up one morning and experienced a strange excitement. She became anxious and did not go to school. She refused to eat and wouldn’t leave her room.
Her parents thought it was an attack of seasonal depression, but that was not the case. The anxiety attack went away, but the next day it happened again, and so it was every day. Constantly for a year Gloria had anxiety, and for weeks she couldn’t eat – she had no appetite. It was as if her body rejected all food.
The girl’s condition was accompanied by nervous fits, Gloria was tearing her hair and clothes off her body and smashing up furniture. When the real anorexia began, the family called in a psychiatrist – Maria Soler, one of the most expensive doctors in town. She specialized in mental problems in adolescents.
The senora examined the girl and recommended that Gloria be hospitalized. Urgent measures were needed – otherwise it could have been fatal from severe anorexia. Gloria could have harmed herself or relatives. From the lack of sleep she began to experience insanity.
The girl was taken to the hospital, which was considered a high-level psychiatric hospital. But Gloria’s parents did not know that Soler owned the facility. And officially a nursing home, this hospital did not have a psychiatric license. There was silence inside, but the parents were preoccupied with their daughter’s condition, not paying attention to the surroundings.
Strange Clinic Gloria had a breakdown when she found out she was staying in the hospital. She was reassured that it wouldn’t be for long, but as her parents’ car drove away, the girl screamed and begged to be let go outside. The orderlies had to tie her up and sedate her. That same day, Gloria even ate a little. By nightfall they injected her with haloperidol, which made her “a vegetable.
At night the girl needed to go to the bathroom, so they untied her and helped her out into the hallway. And Gloria tried to escape by jumping out the window, running to the fence and trying to climb over the fence. She ran into the woods, where it was dark and difficult to navigate.
This was the information conveyed by the nurses who had missed Gloria. They had a lot of experience, diplomas, qualifications, good reputation – they were believed without any questions. And there were no other witnesses. The police set up a search, but they didn’t start looking until sunrise. Nothing was found. They searched the whole forest.
They asked all the drivers who were on the road that night, but no one noticed the girl in her hospital gown on the highway. The road was four kilometers away in the dark woods, and they suspected the medical workers might have overdosed on drugs and hid Gloria’s body after an overdose. But a search of the clinic grounds was unsuccessful, too.
The parents didn’t believe Soler or the nurses. After all, Gloria was 172 cm tall, she could not have swung over a fence two her height, and after the relaxing medication. Another nuance – the girl had very poor eyesight, -8, so that she could hardly navigate in the dark, and even without glasses – they remained on the bed.
In the end, Gloria was never found. Thirty years have passed since then, there has been no change in the case. The girl is missing, and all her parents could do was sue Soler and her clinic. The doctor is on trial to pay the family more than 100,000 euros for damages – improper treatment of the patient and inattentive care.