Dr Randi Rosenqvist, one of Norway’s most well-known forensic psychiatrists, now believes more mentally unstable patients should be committed to psychiatric hospitals. That, she believes, could have prevented more psychiatric patients from becoming murderers.
Rosenqvist and her colleague Dr Terje Tørrissen, along with several other psychiatrists, told newspaper Aftenposten that more patients should be forced into treatment. Dr Pål Grøndal also has criticized liberal Norwegian laws that require patient consent for treatment. He suggested that a man now on trial for murdering his case worker in her office at a NAV social welfare office last year was released from treatment too early.
Several of the murders committed in Norway in recent years are carried out by people with long records of psychiatric problems. Rosenqvist and her colleagues criticized laws that restrict treatment or, as in the NAV case, release patients from treatment even though they remain mentally unstable.
The man indicted for murdering a NAV worker in her office has claimed that he acted in self-defense because she threatened to starve him. He has admitted to stabbing her repeatedly but denies he’s legally at fault. She died three days later.
newsinenglish.no staff
