As a person that works at a Baker Act receiving hospital I'm appalled to hear this and some of the replies to this comment about the conditions in which you were treated.

The hospital I work at is a medical facility that accepts normal patients as well as those mentally ill. Our psychiatric areas are our best run of all the hospital in my opinion.

The area I work is the ED, where patients directly come to me from the police, EVAC, or triage if they are voluntary. My pod is separate from the main ED and behind locked doors, voluntary patients must consent to be behind these locked doors before they can come back, involuntary patients are brought regardless. All patients are medically cleared by a MD, a physician assistant working under a MD, or a nurse practitioner.

We have 8 rooms in my pod, and they are very bare. They have padded tan walls with a single bed in the centre, and two windows on each side of a heavy metal door which can only be locked with a physicians order. The rooms are meant to be bare to reduce stimuli. Patients are not allowed their cellphones or personal clothes and are placed in either hospital gowns or hospital pajamas and given "booty" socks. We offer magazines, newspapers, or bibles but most patients prefer to sleep or to talk to one of the staff. Every room as audio and video surveillance on a closed circuit system. You can request these recordings to be added to your medical file or they will be added by the psychiatrist. Most cases the videos are reviewed by risk management on a weekly basis (I believe with a doctor present but I'm unsure on this.)

The average stay in my pod is about 10 hours. We have a psychiatrist on call 24/7 and there is always one present at the hospital, whether on the inpatient unit ( which I have not worked on much but is very similar to a regular hospital floor with the exception of TVs in every room (we use a day room) and the entrances and exits are locked with keycard systems). Our job is to determine placement for the patient, observe them, and present them to the psychiatrist. The majority of my patients have their baker acts lifted, and are referred to outpatient facilities.

Patients that are admitted are kept until they are stabilized on medicines (they have the right to refuse these, unless the doctor orders otherwise for combative patients). Doctors can resign involuntary orders for patients are can be kept as long as medically fit. We hold court meetings every week where these orders are reviewed by a judge and either overturned or accepted. When a voluntary patient requests discharge they are required to be released within 24 hours unless the doctor signs them as involuntary.

The treatment of our patients is a very big concern, we are trained to recognize that these people are sick, not criminals. I'll treat a schizophrenic patient no different than I would a patient admitted for any other reason.

I can assure you our patient phones do work (though not at night unless you are in the ED, they are on 24/7). Our facility is very heavily monitored by JACHO and OCHA. Any facility that does not seem up to par to you (like some of the ones I read about here) needs to be reported. These organizations WILL investigate EVERY claim.

Sorry for any formatting or grammar errors here, I'm on mobile. If you have any questions please ask, I'll say what i can without violating any HIPPA regulations, and short of naming myself or the facility in which I work.