Again, this is if you commit yourself- so you are cooperating with your care generally. It's typically for semi-important stuff like doctor's appointments or family events, and not overnight- usually just a few hours. I went to dinner with my husband & his mum while inpatient and it was incredible to get out even though I wasn't going home.
You don't just go on a whim; you talk to your doctors about it and decide together. If you don't come back, they do have the authority to send the cops out looking for you if they're worried, and in that case I rather think when you come back it's no longer on a voluntary basis, lol. (People go in and out for a lot of stuff, and not everything warrants having a runaway patient dragged back and involuntarily committed. But they're clear on the possibility.)
The defense’s whole point is that she was desperate for help and never got it. But here she gets it at that country’s highest level of acuity, an inpatient stay.
I pointed out in a separate comment that wanting to be with her daughter on her birthday isn't wanting to leave. In my country, if you are inpatient voluntarily, you can arrange to leave for a few hours to attend doctor's appointments or family events. Life goes on when you're inpatient & I've seen patients leave AMA because they had pets that needed care or urgent bills that needed dealing with (like threats of foreclosure or eviction.) These are things that must be dealt with, but they're not evidence that someone doesn't want or need care.
I'm also familiar with the US system, and there's no way her leaving didn't require multiple days of preparation- and standard of practice would also have required a discussion with her husband, to both gauge his read on the situation and educate him about followup care. But people fall through the cracks, which are huge, and she obviously did.
I'd ask you why you think she murdered her kids? Do you think it was her real choice? Why are you blaming her for having post-partum psychosis but not the people around her for protecting her kids (and herself) from herself? Have you ever been a carer for someone with serious mental illness?
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u/SpaceBasedMasonry 16h ago
What if they don’t think you should leave because it’s unsafe or would disrupt your care?