Woman Begged Scientologist Doctor For Mental Health Treatment Before Suicide, Lawsuit Says
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The mother of a Florida woman who killed herself while being treated by a Scientologist doctor is accusing him of misdiagnosing her daughter with terminal cancer and other ailments instead of providing her with psychiatric care, which the Church of Scientology opposes.
Leila Mills, whose 40-year-old daughter Whitney Mills died by suicide in 2022, last month amended an earlier wrongful death lawsuit against various Scientology organizations to include Dr. David Minkoff and his alternative health clinic. According to the suit, Whitney Mills had been “brainwashed” by other members of Scientology who recognized her acute mental anguish, including debilitating depression, anxiety and hallucinations; one allegedly suggested she “drop the body,” which the lawsuit calls a euphemism for death. When Whitney Mills specifically asked for mental health treatment in a text message to Minkoff — who was previously sued in connection to the death of a Scientologist patient — he allegedly told her to do Scientology training drills, which the lawsuit describes as a “level of quackery … [that] is nothing short of astounding.”
“He was in a position as a doctor, a licensed doctor in the state of Florida, to help her and give her the right treatment, or get her to the right treatment,” attorney Ramon Rasco, who is representing Leila Mills, told HuffPost. “And he failed to do that.”
Minkoff and the Church of Scientology have not yet responded to the lawsuit in court. Minkoff did not respond to questions from HuffPost about the allegations.In a statement shared with HuffPost, the Church of Scientology said Mills was not under its “care or supervision” before she died and that she was solely responsible for decisions regarding her medical treatment.
Whitney Mills, a real estate agent in Clearwater — home to Scientology’s Florida headquarters and numerous member-run businesses — joined the organization in 2007 at age 26. According to the lawsuit, Mills paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Church of Scientology for coursework and training to achieve its highest level, “OT 8,” in 2019. An “OT,” or Operating Thetan, is defined by Scientology as a spiritual being with a “knowing and willing cause over life, thought, matter, energy, space and time.”
The Church of Scientology calls psychiatry a “pseudo-science” with “no scientific basis for any of its treatments or methods.” In 1969, it established a “mental health watchdog” called the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which runs the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard.
Content retrieved from: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/woman-begged-scientologist-doctor-mental-110010395.html.
