Forgotten Australians, memories

Shock treatment

by Gwen (Sandra) Robinson (guest author) on 22 June, 2011

‘My heart broke for these defenseless people and still does today.’ Gwen (Sandra) Robinson was placed in Wolston Park Hospital, Tufnell Home and Home of the Good Shepherd Mitchelton. Here, she remembers her experiences at Wolston Park.

Gwen writes:

My name is Gwen Robinson preferably known as Sandra and I am going to write a little about the Shock Treatment that I seen given to patients at Wolston Park Mental Hospital also known as Goodna Mental Hospital. First I will tell you a little about myself and how I got there. I was put in there for being an absconder, better known as an habitual run-away, and not because there was anything mentally wrong with me which was proven by the I.Q. test that I did there and it came out as above average. I had the brains to be an accountant, which is what I wanted to be, but I was never given the education to follow that profession. There is a letter in my files written by a doctor to the Childrens Department stating that Wolston Park was non-theraputic to me and I should be out in a hostel and doing a business course. Needless to say that never happened and the Childrens Department just kept me there to be kept drugged up. We were given a drug called peraldahyde and it had to be given in a glass vial as it melted plastic. The mind shudders as to what it has done to my body being given to me as a young teenager. We were also given other mind altering drugs which kept us immobilised, which led to some of us wetting or dirtying ourselves as we could not move. It also left the staff free range to do whatever they wanted when we were in this state. I have cigarette burns on my arms from the staff and other scars.

I absconded from Tufnell Home and ended up in The Good Shepherd at Mitchelton and then I got out of there and was sent to Karalla House. I never got out of there but was locked up for more than a month in solitary confinement and when we got out of these rooms we came out as mad as hell and caused trouble and then this led me to be put in the Mental Hospital as it was the most secure place in QLD to keep me. I got out of there and was caught months later and was locked in a room for 2 weeks for the male staff to have access to as this was my punishment. I was also told at this time that if I escaped again that there was a lot of suicides in the Bremmer River. I believed them as I thought if you can lock me up with the Criminally Insane, and no one is doing anything about it, then you could do exactly as you pleased. Needless to say that I did escape from there one more time and was never caught, but I lived a life of being someone else as I thought I would be murdered. If anyone is interested I could explain that to them. In my mind I have never deserved any of this treatment as my only crime was being an orphan and being severly bashed at home and sometimes so bad that the school took me to the Hospital as I had blood and welts all over my body.

I cannot remember the number of the Ward that I was in when I witnessed the horror of seeing people being strapped down for shock treatment and also seeing them come out of the room when it was done. I am sitting here writing this with tears in my eyes as the pure horror of what these people went through comes back to me. It was one of the cruelist things that I have ever witnessed. The patients would fight the staff and come and hide behind other people, such as myself, and beg us to help and protect them. There was nothing I could do and they would be dragged away by staff and they would be begging and pleading to the staff not to do this to them. When they came out of the rooms after Shock Treatment they would be left lying on the beds and this is when I seen male staff interferring and doing sexual things to some of the patients while they were unconscious. Even today thinking about it makes my stomach heave. I have always been quite a strong person and have had a strong sense of survival, but what I seen in this place and also had done to me has had the worst effect on me even these many years later. Sometimes for days and even weeks these patients who had Shock Treatment would walk around in a daze with strange eyes, like they couldn’t focus, and also loss of memory. They were forever asking others what their names were and where they were. Another thing is that they were very skiddish as hiding behind other patients, such as myself, so as not to be noticed by staff and if staff came towards some it was like they were frozen with fear and I witnessed some patients just pass out with this fear and some of the staff thought this was quite funny. My heart broke for these defenseless people and still does today. Everyone dreaded Shock Treatment days but some of the staff loved it.

The Government in QLD. will not compensate any of us who were children placed in Adult Institutions or who were locked up with the Criminally Insane. They keep saying that the Redress Scheme has closed but they fail to realise is that these Mental Institutions were not covered by the Redress Scheme as it only covered places in the Terms of Reference for the Forde Inquiry and this Forde Inquiry did not let us speak of these Mental Institutions and we were told that they would never be included as it was a seperate issue. None of us have ever found a lawyer who is smart enough or has the fight to take on the Government or Health Department on this issue. Even the legal part of the Senate Inquiry says we should be looked at again for compensation as it was wrong that we were excluded as we were put there by the Children’s Department.

20 thoughts on “Shock treatment”

  1. i attended many “shock therapy” sessions. holding someone down while they were electrocuted didn’t appeal to me personally. patients recovered (with a cup of tea) in an open area and taken back to their ward by the assigned staff. a doctor was always on hand. if you were molested please put your case forward. your reminiscences are all over the place. the way your account reads, you were in the room but not actually having the treatment. …… NO staff member LOVED shock treatment. but keep belting out Forde Enquiry stuff. if approached properly, many may have a case…….

  2. I don’t know who you are Mr. Caldwell but you obviously did not read my account properly. Good to hear that you admit holding people down though even if it did not appeal to you personally but you still did that to another human being….. and others who did the same. My account does not state that I was in the same room it states that I was in the same Ward and seen them taken away for shock treatment. I have never been in a room where people were given shock treatment but I have seen them taken away for shock treatment and seen them afterwards and why would I not remember some things as I never stated that I had shock treatment and yes some of the staff that worked where I was did love giving shock treatment. You do not know me or others who have been through this and locked up with the CRIMINALLY INSANE AS CHILDREN so please do not attack me… [G]oing to the police and the court system that we have been through that did not do anything to help us out to catch these people and totally let us down mainly because other decent nurses and doctors did not and would not come forward to testify to what they had seen. I personally named one nurse who did nothing wrong herself but witnessed things and said she would come to court but changed her mind because she fostered children through the childrens department and did not want to lose this job. I also asked her why she did not make an anonymous phone call to a newspaper or someone, as a nurse did for the victims at Karalla House that eventually got the place closed down, and she told me and others that she was scared for her own safety. Well if she was scared for her own safety it gives you some idea of how we felt in this place as children. I and many others would love to see these perpertrators rotting in jail but sometimes there are places that people and governments do not want you to go and all sorts of obstacles are put in your way. There are plenty of facts as we have one nurse on tape admitting to what her and others had done and this was gathered by a firm of Private Detectives that did all this work for nothing for us and they personally handed it to the then Police Commissioner who then handed it on to the revelant department and we had one interview and then the case was just put in a draw as eventually we were told that historic child abuse and these other crimes are hard to prove so nothing became of it. One girl, who I know personally, was raped in there by a wardsman and she had a child and it was taken off her and given up for adoption and she has since found this child, with the help of a very nice lawyer, and nothing has happened to this man for what he did. D.N.A. was taken and it has been proven that he is the father and she was only about 13 at the time.
    I could go on forever and give you facts and sworn statements have been taken but nothing has happened to these people and never will as so called good people will not come forward or go to the police and say what they have seen as they know some of it was horriffic and they do not want people to know that either that they were involved in some of this or witnessed some of it and did nothing.
    So Mr. Calwell please do not attack us…….. Sandra.

  3. Hi; Ian,

    Wittness words of electric shock treatment.
    Some may take 5 mins to recover others hours or even days. 2 girls wasnt in good shape after they bought them back on stretchers from shock treatment; consequently they were taken to the hospital which they lay in an unconscious state for at least 2 to 4 days.
    There were those who had seizures and one patient died from having seizures. Looking out for patients from having seizures would of being a nurses job is that correct?. However, one lady died from a seizure nursers were called but didnt come till the following morning.

    When some returned from shock treatment they were so disorientated shaking uncontrollably and sometimes their eyes were sort of rolled back into their sockets. If some had cups of tea, nursers must of held the tea for the ones that took hours to recover due to they couldnt focus.
    Patients that took hours for their eyes to find their bearings and unable to hold a small talk or even to try to talk: shaking uncontrollably and eyes were sunk back in their sockets would of been a frightening experience for any 13 to 16 yr olds to wittness.

    Shock treatment given to girls under duress for adolescent rebellion to tyrannical authority/ bad behavour , absconders from orphanages were placed into adult mental asylums and not for a mental illness. Threats given to patients to have shock treatment wasnt right neither. My sister was given 10/12 shock treatments and has no recolection of some things that happened in her life, she stated she has lost 4 yrs of memory. CEOs are welcomed to question her what she went through and what she wittnessed of other patients when returned from shock treatment.

    I feel sad for the patients having shock treatment for rebellion/bad behavour, to them that would of been a torturous action to them. I wonder if nursers would of understood that, different story if a person wants shock treatment volantry they would except it as ok. Electricity zapped into their brains must of been risky for the skilled Drs, I wonder if it frightened nursers to see shock treatment done and how they looked when returned.

    Evidence should be produced by the Government which will be welcomed. Thank you Ian for your letters.

  4. The UK government has recently introduced e-petitions online.
    Please sign this ‘Abolish ECT’ e-petition and relegate this barbaric ‘treatment’ to the history books along with lobotomy. We need 100,000 signatures to get it debated in parliament.
    To sign an e-petition, you must be either:
    • a citizen of the UK (can live abroad)
    • a resident in the UK (you normally live in the UK)
    It only takes a minute! Please pass this on.
    https//epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16278
    Thank you for your help.

  5. Hi; Cheryl Prax,

    Electric shock treatment given to children not for mental problems but adolescent rebellion to tyrannical authority is crinimally wrong in my opion.

    Perhaps Psychiatrists consider adolescent rebellion as a mental illness, if that be the case then prove it through blood tests exrays that adolescent rebellion is a mental illness and if they cant, then that makes their judgemental opions plus electric shock treatment for adolescent rebellion wrong and fraudulent.
    No one is exempt from some form of rebellion in their lives particually when as children to parents/teachers and as adults Parliamentray attacking each other in Parliament, rebelling to each other instead of supporting each other.

    I have an excellent manufactured new desease that should be added to the DSM, how about it be named ” whatacon human disorder’.

  6. I would like to encourage anyone reading this letter if you are a writer,or an Investigative Journalist to research what happened with Forgotten Australians that were placed into adult mental asylums as children as a form of punishment , or really to fill up the quota for these Doctors and Psychiatrists to experiment on in their experiments on children, where they were exposed to moral danger being with the mentally crinimally insane. Find out how many F.As and the reasons they were placed into those asylums and what experiements were done unto them.

    The statistics I would like to know is how many were placed in there for :-
    1. Adolescent rebellion… supposedly!
    2. Bad behaviour…..Supposedly
    3. Too short for their age . Supposedly[ I know of one]
    4. Stealing
    5. Absconders from Orphanages. Running away from what?
    6. How many had electric shock treatment How often , How many died from this “treatment”
    7. Drugged and the strenght of the drugs
    8. Placed in straight jackets
    9. Ones that were sexually intered with and if it was reported on their case notes
    10. Seizures
    11. Deaths
    12. Causes of deaths on their death certificts
    13. How many went missing
    14. The real reasons government sent them to mental asylums
    15. Was it because F.As were guniue pigs for experiements
    16. Was the A.M.A involved
    17. If deaths occured were their bodies given to Unversities to be for “Medical Research”?
    18. Was the Bremier River ever inspected if bodies were thrown in there, as this was a common threat made to keep some quiet.
    19. Why was F.As that were placed into adult mental asylums omitted from the Federal Apology 2009 and the Forde Inquiry??
    20. Why the silence from Parliament and C.E.O.s
    21. Why they dont want to compensate the victims, Perhaps this will acknowledge they were well aware of all of this , but remained silent .
    22. Do they feel they did the right thing by placing children in moral danger and was it legal
    23. Did they specifically know F.As were placed there as gunie pigs for experiements
    24. Does Gov. know how many deaths and if not how come and was it their responsiblity to know.
    25.Why do not Clan, Lotus and others , not mention all of this abuse/medical experiments , numerous Electric Shock Treatments and the Deep Sleep Therapy,-as was being practiced down at Sydney thanks to Psychiatrist H.B. and E.C. over in Canada doing the same thing? as they surely must be aware of all of this ?
    26. One wonders if The 2011 Australian of the year Psychiatrist P. M…… is aware of all of this history , but “For the sake of Psychiatry” …. remains quiet about all of this .??
    27. The Australian Eugenis program is surely alive and doing very well with all of these
    “Helpers ” it seems ?
    28. If they dont have any records, how come and what happened to them.
    29. Do they have any idea how F.As must of felt what was done to them as innocent children.
    30. Do they understand why FAs consider how they were abused by a cruel barbaric system
    31. Why is no one giving any form of sympathy compassion understanding acknowledging from organzations what was done to them was sadistic barbaric and cruel.

    These F. As now realise that all of this abuse they were subjected to , which included
    1. Rape
    2. Torture
    3.Extreme amounts of druggings with all sorts of drugs.
    4. Straight jackets
    5. Tied to a bed for days with no food and little water
    And finally The Good old “Electric Shock Treatment for the rebellous”which was primarily given to remove from their memory all of this , which is why they use it so much!!

  7. Child abuse aproved by the State Childrens Department pre 80s which looks to me they have Parliamentary immunity for such asbuse under the covering of scienctific experiements on Forgotten Australians as children/adolescents.

    Forgotten Australian children that were hurting by nuns/carers tyrannical authority and being in a systems of abuse responded to being hurt had no options but do three things.
    1. Stand up to them
    2. Abscond from the the system
    3. Nothing
    Standing up to them in those days took a lot of integellence and God given guts. Not many were game to stand up to them particually the children that were sodomized by the priests, due to the fact we were in fear of their authority, and what would happen to us if we told anyone. For standing up to tyrannical authority, nuns agressivly shoved my sister into the dungeon for hours giving her bread and water and telling her she was the devil.
    In thoses days children had no human rights, children had to obey no matter what and failing to obey and absconding from a systems of abuse, children were deemed as naughty/rebellous by nuns and the State Childrens Department. These places were “Pedophile Heaven” to these Priests and others who had a big bent in their personality, as many did it seems.

    The State Childrens Department through a court order placed the rebellous into an adult mental asylum as a form of punishment where the mentally crinimally insane were housed placing them in moral danger to which they were experiemented on with multipal electric shock treatment to “cure rebellion and their naughtyness,” straight jackets, drugged worse than zombies and sexual things done to some and deaths possibly from seizures and the after effects of too much electricity put through them.

    In 2011, letters have being written to Premier Anna Bligh requesting compensation ,-but of course no deal. She says to go through the legal channels for compensation, no Solicator will touch it as it was too long ago and MPS know that. They tell you to go to Health Complaints and they too say they can do nothing as it was to long ago.
    If their responses say they can do nothing, then why does the Premier say go through the legal channels. I dont believe MPs are stupid, they know the Law very well.
    What amazes me, sexual acts committed pre 80s one is compensated, but abuse, torture allowed to happen to Forgotten Australians in adult mental asylums for experiements nothing.

    WHY

    In my opion, if Government aproved torture to F.As in the asylums, they simply are allowed to, hence they get away with those attrocities. They needed gunie pigs for the Australian Medical Assosation to experiement on and State Ward Children were the gunie pigs.
    So where is justice NONE, however if there is then MPs prove it by providing Solicators at no cost to Forgotten Australians, better still to save cost Government compensate through a Redress scheme.

    Not every Forgotten Australian received Redress, children dumped into adult mental asylums as a form of punishment were omitted from Redress WHY. I would appericate MPs. Jenny Macklin, Malcom Turmbil, Bob Brown and CEOs please answer.
    Stating the word sorry is just a word anyone can say sorry and it means nothing, prove the word sorry through action by compensating tax free lump sum to the victims and let us remember those who died in the asylums from possible failed medical experiements or murders.

    SCENARIO 1

    If I was to set out and purposely run over Premier Anna Bligh or some of these other “Honourable members of Parliament “and they sustained much injuries which they had to carry along with them for the rest of their lives , and these injuries also caused them psycholigical damage and restricted their earning capabilities for the rest of their lives, ,…… and then 30-40 years later due to some reason or other I had a “Twinge of Conscience” or something along those lines, and I came along and with quite a bit of publicity and fanfare and said “I AM SORRY!”…….. and nothing else! You,d never hear the end of it now would you?? …. Just sorry No compensation or anything else….. What an evil bastard you would say I am!
    But lets go a little further back and say I had planned with others to do these things for various reasons also , Done all of this evil and sat back and said Nothing……… Well that would certainly compound this issue hey?
    This is EXACTLY what has happened with the Forgotten[and abused ]Australians and yet these people in power with no consciencs or feelings for these people sit back and say nothing! BUT if it was their children…????

  8. Christine Waite and Sandra. I can’t type fast enough . So to give you something to look at for Australian and world crimes committed against children Please Google—–

    Organize Crimes Implemented Globally by the Catholic Church ,—– It covers other Churches and Political involement in the six million four hundred and fourty five thousand crimes committed against children

  9. 1980’s to 1990’s”””’ lets not exclude the children some as young as 11 years old who were sent to goodna AKA wolston park, shock treatment was widely used, many children includeing myself. we were there locked up with male and female criminaly insane patients.
    some children were there because they were profoundly disabled and no one wanted them.
    shanon a 12yr old locked in with us, autistic girl was found by police over 35klms away wandering the main street naked twice, to those who dont know may think she got out and ran away, exept i know i was there, as do others that shanon could not have done this herself, had to get out 2 locked doors past the saff office and tea room, then find transport when she had never accessed before, through an 18 hole golf course all of this for a 12yr old girl who was unable to speak or interact with others.
    the children who suffered post 80’s were not segregated from the adults or the men, our staff were male and female and also many had no nursing expierience they were burnt out by the 60’s and seventys, life for us didnt get easier, Gial was brutaly tortured and murdered there this was the 1980’s Gail had first been placed there also as a child.
    2 of hundreds

  10. I am seeking information about my natural mother Kaye Borradale who was a patient at Wolston Park.
    I have been told two stories about the identity of my father.
    The first story is that Kaye Borradale who was diagnosed with schizophrenia fell in love with M. who was diagnosed as psychotic.
    They absconded from Wolston Park and were gone for several weeks before Kaye was eventually found. During this time Kaye fell pregnant and was placed back in Wolston Park. Kaye gave birth to a girl (me) on the 23rd August, 1967.
    Kaye was made to give me up for foster care.
    This was apparently for my protection as M. was named as the father and was considered an extremely dangerous man. Kaye was not capable of raising a child and my natural grandmother did tell me that Kaye did endure shock therapy.
    My birth certificate states father unknown.
    The second story was told to me by my half brother after my natural mother died. He stated that Kaye (our natural mother) told him she was raped.
    I would like any information from anyone who knew Kaye Borradale and was at Wolston Park in the years between 1966-1969.

  11. Sunday Mail 6/10/96 page 40, nurse backs abuse claims was posted to me on the 28/10/11 and I was horrified to read of the abuse that took place with children/adolescents. The contents what the nurse said confirmes what my sister said in 2009 and many other Forgotten Australians testomonies that took place with them in Goodna Mental Asylum, I would love to know who that nurse was and Im sure others would want to know too.

    Many things the nurse revealed.
    1. Electric shock treatment was given to keep them quiet
    2. F.A tried to suicide numerous times because she objected to male doctors giving her internal examinations and feeling her breasts
    3. The drug paraldehyde was given and placed in a straight jacket and locked up until she could learn to keep her mouth shut.
    4. Death of a girl
    5. Rape of a girl
    6. A pregnant aboriginal girl sent to ward 8 in Goodna, a staff member turned the fire hose on the girl so that the powerful water jet hit her abdomen, the girl miscarried on the spot and her attacker hosed the baby down the drain.
    7. Girl ordered not to be fed and eventually died from starvation, other in humane things took place.

    In my opion, it appears that the policy of placing children/adolescents into adult mental asylums for such trivial crimes as running away from orphanages/institutions was based purely on the need of Psychiatrists to experiement. Children in those days that were considered as delinquent were placed into adult mental asylums. Abscondering from orphanages, standing up to tyrannical authority and abscondering from a systems of abuse, one must of been categorized as a delinquent. If the same policy was present today the asylums would be full.
    The asylum had a punishment book, many girls were placed in solitary, one particular girl for 30 days, her crime absconding from a home, others up to 100 days. Children/adolescents were punished for abscondering from homes, standing up to staff ect, yet nursers that abused adolescents as mentioned above were not held accountable neither punished.

    Forgotten Australians placed in adult mental asylums as a form of punishment were children that came from orphanages/institutions. British children sent to Australian orphanages, children in children homes are mentioned, but Forgotten Australians that came from the orphanages and were placed into adult mential asylums are not mentioned WHY.

  12. Christine Waite and those responding to the barbaric behavior that was routine in our Mental Hospitals and similar Institution, It seems our Government and Church leaders are only dealing with the CRISIS as information is trickling in and using this SLOW process so as to minimize the impact so as not to cause a storm so the general public do not get too aroused and so force a Royal Commission . They have this information and have known it for many many decades and as Professor Brian Martin will tell you —-Its the intention, that this pattern of response is a calculated one to steer away any major uproar If the Public got wind of it all hell will break out and things would get out of control .That the problem that all leaders of Church and State are working at, so to have complete control, is the intention of the process facing us with an uphill battle to obtain a compete transparency ,so moral and legal process is halted to its maximum . If thats the case , then many heads will roll and it won,t be ours

  13. Could somebody please tell me the stats on the number of Forgotten Australian women that were placed in adult mental asylums that were experiemented with psychiatric drugs and electric shock treatments and if their first born children have birth defects.?
    It would be intrestering to know, as it wouldnt surrprise me that birth defects would be at a much higher rate than the norm. This would be due to the drugs that the psychiatrists were experiementing with on Forgotten Australians I believe.

    Frequent large doses of drugs used which made them like zombies.
    1. Largactil
    2. Lithium
    3. Melleril
    4. Paraldehyde

    The drug paraldehyde had to be put in a glass shringe not a plastic one to adminster to the children/adolescents, due to paraldehyde melts plastic. All those drugs in young girls system must cause some sort of damage to their bodies and possibly their first born children.

  14. Needless to say, this is an important question Christine.

    It’s a major research project and indeed a worthy one.There is no quick answer to this one.. This is research that should be done.

  15. I have been reading everyones comments and seeing as this site closes shortly I would also like to say something. I agree that nothing will ever be done or an Inquiry held into children being put into Adult Mental Institutions and being locked up with the Criminally Insane and most certainly no compensation will ever be paid but this does not stop me from fighting on to some sort of end and Lawrie Higgins is right as they have known about us for decades as our lot hit the papers in Brisbane back in 1996 and was written about by Ken Blanc. I don’t think anyone in Government grasps what has been done to us. They do not seem to realise that a lot of horror movies and thrillers are made about murderers and the like which are the very people we were locked up with. They cannot even imagine what we went through as I think most of them still do not believe us. Oh they believe we were put in there alright as we have files and that to prove it but they do not believe what we tell them about what went on as it seems unbelievable. Name me one politician who has ever spoken publicly about us to the newspapers or news or a current affairs programme. They have spoken about other Forgotten Australians and Stolen Generation and Child Migrants, and rightly so, but never specifically just about us. We seem to have a stigma attached to us because if we weren’t mentally sick then, perhaps we are now because what has been done to us and they do not want to get involved. Remember the old saying that a catastrophe is not a catastrophe unless it is your catastrophe. This is how they think. What chance do we have when the organisations set up to help ALL Forgotten Australians don’t want to know us. As far as I know C.L.A.N. has done nothing for us or mentioned us anywhere and does not want to know us and also Lotus Place set up for Forgotten Australians also does not want to know us or do anything for us. We can’t even get Lotus Place to do anything for the Forgotten Australians on the Gold Coast. Once organisations start taking government money it spells the end for us. I know this probably sounds a little strange but I have been doing this a long time, with a couple of others, and I know what we are up against. It is called apathy and we will never have anyone stand up for us, and what a lot of people don’t realise also is that the Health Department is a pretty strong branch of the Government and I have yet to meet anyone who will ask them questions about our treatment. Because of our lack of care and abuse there are not a lot of us left and the Government is just waiting for us to die off. Two people I know who went through Wolston Park Mental Hospital as children have died in the last 5 years and I know of others who are pretty sick. I would say that probably not many, if any, Forgotten Australians who went through the Mental Places as children will even get invited to the opening of the Museum and if they do they will have to pay for it themselves which most of us can’t and they know it. If anyone feels so inclined I would love to hear what others think before we are closed down and forgotten about.

  16. Thanks Sandra,
    Should we write to Queensland Members of Parliament and the media in order? What would you like them to do? What should the outcome be?

    And Sandra, sorry if I’m putting pressure on you to come up with the answers. Please don’t feel that it’s your job to fix it.

    You have already articulated the injustice so clearly. I understand that more action needs to be taken.

    Thanks again Sandra.

  17. Side effects from the drug Lithium that was given to Forgotten Australians that were dumped into adult mental asylums as a form of punishment for abscondering from orphanages, standing up to tyrannical authority, which was classified as bad behaviour.

    1. Loss of consciousness
    2. Loss of coordination
    3. Muscle weakness
    4. Seizures
    5. Slured speech
    6. Slow or irregular heart beat

    I wonder how many Forgotten Australians died from those prescribed drugs or if any of there children had birth defects caused from those drugs.

  18. That is my point Adele. Queensland members of Parliament know and so do a lot of the main papers so what else do you suggest we do. You work in with the government and deal with these people so what do you think we should do to make them sit up and listen and realise what has been done to us. I told you it is called apathy. I and a couple of others have been doing this for over 15 years and there is not much we haven’t thought of. We testified at Forde Inquiry but were not allowed to talk on Goodna as it wasn’t in Terms of Reference. We testified to the Senate Committee for both Inquiries they had including the one for Constitutional and Legal Affairs and all recommendations pertaining to us have been ignored. The outcome should be belief for a start and then some dead set serious help. Most of our families have serious health problems, such as my son who has a tumor on the pituitary gland in his brain. If you google peraldyhyde you will find one of the side effects of this drug, which was given to me against my wishes, is this tumor in the brain. None of my family, that I know about, has ever had these problems nor any of my forebears so where did it come from. A lot of former residents of these Mental Hospitals have children with serious medical problems, but the government just turn their back on you when you ask for help. There is also the topic of compensation as a lot of these abused children actually had a brain and could of done something with their lives and the fact that we have survived shows resillience and intelligence. I wanted to be an accountant and others I know wanted to be a teacher, a lawyer and various other professions but the education was not there, just abuse. We cannot fix this unless an advocate comes forward for us and we need someone with a bit of clout and besides what is wrong with the government just doing the right thing why does everything have to be such a fight. You say, Adele, that you understand more action needs to be taken then tell us what. Do you or anyone else even have any inkling of an idea of what we have been through? Do any of you know what it is like to be constantly in a state of fear watching your back from patients and staff also? Do you know what it is like to learn how, at such a young age and adults can’t do it, to survive in these places and deal with seriously ill patients who are there because they are really sick? Do you know that most of the patients in the Criminally Insane ward were there for killing children and guess where a lot of us ended up, we were a fly to a spider. One of these patients, who was there for killing her child and also was on the Queens Pleasure in other words never to get out, grabbed me by the throat and choked me and I blacked out but my last thought was that I am dying and I would of only that the staff grabbed her and fought and pulled her off and I was very surprised when I came to and was alive. Her intention was to kill me and I had never even spoken to this giant of a person. This is only one thing that happened to me so try living with our memories everyday where even a smell or a sound can nearly make your heart stop. I think we have been put in the too hard basket.

  19. Government speaks with a falk tongue from Mrs Judith Cunningham nee Lyons Parramatta Girls Home 65 & 66……..Judith asked me to send this on her behalf.

    All this media hype huff and puff how they care in front of the cameras. The truth of the matter is, they realy do not care about the torture and abuse F.As suffered at gov. command. There is no care of compensation for tortured, abused many Forgotten Australians and their famlies. All these wonderful memorials plaques grusome stories and pitcures all to glorfy their own putridness abuses of famlies and children.
    Question.
    Who in their right mind would even want to hear about or gaze upon this gross sadness forced on famlies and little babies, and now we have PM Miss Gillard backing the soldiers to stay at war causing more orphans that caused orphans in the first place.

    Eg. Forgotten Australians Stolen Generation, while they bold facefully lie stand and refuse to pay compensation to most at every turn for pain and suffering to famlies.
    Government pay for stone steel and paper to blow their trumpet of how putrid government dealings really are.
    But thats ok, because GOD Almighty has a place assigned for the hypocrites, that we see the government leaders are. Hypocrites that speak with falk tongues. THEY ARE FULL OF S..T.
    F.A equals Forgotten Australians. F.A also means f..k all and thats the truth of the matter of what we are to them the f..k alls.

    Thank you Australia
    Judith Cunningham

  20. Re letter from Judith Cunningham from Parramatta Girls Home 65 & 66 dated 3/11/11 9.13am.

    Judith said, the reason for compesation is for healing for food clothing homes and security.

Comments are closed.