I have been lissioing to a ABC radio national show called all in the mind. they did a 3 part show on Goodna Mental Hospital in queensland. When you lission to it its really sickerning the lack of care that was provided by mental health services. now some of this is about the abuse of the mental health services for instance sticking children who were wards of the state into the mental health system or sticking epileptics into the high security mental health wards. The other part of the program is how the true pts were actually treated. Even now people can be involentally detained under the mental health acts for treatment but now this is for treatment where as before it was for control. Pt care was almost no existant and as the shrink in the first section said it was about control not treatment. pt advocasy simply didnt exist and they had no control over there own lives. Sexual assult and general assults not to mention social and emotional abuse were not just rampent but in the case of the last 2 were institutional. For instance the pts were all required to strip and walk to the showers. They were forced to line up naked and just stand there waiting for a shower. Either the guardianship board didnt exist or it was weak and a rubber stamp for whatever the staff wanted to do to the pts including forced medication and constant ECT. When staff were acused of abuse the unions forced the matter closed no matter what the situation was. in the first artical they had a women who was pregnant at 19 in there who was forced to have ECT all through her pregnancy. The hospital aplied to the womens hospital to have the baby aborted without her concent and as soon as she gave birth was just dumped back in there. She was told that she would be dumped in the permident "never to be releaced" ward where there was no apeal and no oversite. these stories go right up to the 80's and 90's anyway its the three programes on the 12th, 19th and 26th of july http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/
It's one of the most frightening notions I can think of - being trapped in the 'system' with no control over your own life. The cases of sexual assault are the most disturbing. After all, who would believe an inmate of a loony bin? That doesn't make any sense. Was the baby aborted or did she give birth naturally?
sorry, thats my fault. i was writing this as i was lissioning and i wasnt exactly in a focused state of mind the meternity hospital told the psych hospital it was to late so she went through with the pregnancy while being told by all the nurses she wasnt worthy to have a child ect. the child was adopted out and the women was told she would never leave the psych hospital. she didnt get out until 4 years after his birth and i dont rember how long before she found him. and i agree, the compleat powerlessness of the situation is apaling. this is way worse than prision because at least in jail they cant force drugs and ECT ect and in jail at least you know when you will get out, can have contact with family ect and have some control over your situation through apeals, lawyers, judical oversite. these people had nothing and no one until the office of the pts friends was established. even then it was more dispised than police internal affairs by the docs and especially the nursing staff and it was 2 people for the largest mental health hospital in australia. not to mention that the guardianship board was only just being established. the staff had as a condition of employment that they couldnt bring camera's into the facility so they oviously knew what they did was wrong
