From Richmond Mercury, Volume 2, Number 7, 24 October 1973

...

The justices insist that they screen calls on their own before issuing a warrant for a hearing, but there is no log kept of the calls they receive. "They say they get more requests than they can pick up," stated MCV psychiatrist Dr. Henry K. Silberman, "but there's no way to check on this. Further, since they are paid per hearing rather than by salary (a matter set by law), even though they operate in good faith, they leave themselves open to criticism. ...

Once a warrant is issued, Silberman points out, there are few safe-guards for the person being held. Police apprehend the individual and take him to the hospital. The person must be kept at MCV until a hearing takes place, even if an emergency room resident feels that he has no need to be there.
...

As it stands now, people brought in on Saturday must wait until Monday for their hearing. "The whole thing is more like a criminal proceeding than a therapeutic one," according to Silberman. "The least they could do is have the people picked up by plainclothes policemen."
...
Psychiatrists share the task of screening commitment patients and spend an average of two mornings a month on the seventh floor. For the most part, they dislike the assignment. "My attitude, and the attitude of many here is 'here it is, we've got to go again,' " said Silberman, "some of us go along and do it, but hate the very thought."

The working conditions of the commitment service are one reason for this feeling, according to Silberman. On days when the floor is crowded, he says, a doctor simply does not have the time to make a judgment that's fair to the patient. "It's essentially unprofessional," Silberman said, "you're dealing with a person's life and you want to do the best you can. But you don't have an adequate place to interview the patient, you have inadequate information, and occasionally the person who took out the warrant doesn't show up."

"I would be grandiose if I said I could evaluate a patient in ten minutes — I can't. Nor do I have the time to find an alternative mode for treatment."

Doctors also resent the fact that the commitment service is located in the space they use as the locked part of the hospital's own inpatient service. Silberman claims that the commitment patients interfere with other patients on the ward — they cause lots of commotion, particularly when they're being brought in or taken out.