by Pat Brodnik (guest author) on 8 August, 2011
‘People are dying and even the press is starting to report these deaths, amazing …’ writes Pat Brodnik, who shares an article from The Age about the ‘unexpected, unnatural or violent’ deaths of 200 Victorian psychiatric patients.
You can read the 1 July 2011 article, ‘200 psych patients died suddenly’, on The Age website.
I must say i was not shocked to read this heading ’200 psych patients died suddenly’,
not because of howmany died,i read the article and claimsmost of these were outside in our community. i guess what would have been better is if someone had explained when there is a seriouse assult or death inside the institutions we rarely hear about it because they are dealt with internaly in my whole 10 yrs i only ever saw equality to justice once, i was 15yrs old, a patient was sevierly beaten by staff, her psychiatrist did not call the administration so the matter could be dealt with internaly this brave man Dr …….. called the police. he saved not only the poor ladys life he saved us all and ended the reign off terror of 1 evil nurse.
after spending 10 years from age 13 in adult mental institutions, 8 years in goodna asylum aka wolston park, the horrors indured by vulnerable patients dished out by other patients and also staff, the torture suffered by inhumane therapy and treatments.
society has for decades ignored the evidence put forward at the 2004 senate inquiery into the abuse of children in institutionalmcare, and other earlier inquierys and royal commissions.
The remembering goodna project museum of brisbane QLD there were around 60 000 who walked through the exibition doors and heard our cry’s many wrote comments, then the national radio ABC aired a 3 part series about the project it was again aired the following year due to demand.
in Dr Finanes book about goodna which was written i think in the 90’s and quickly taken off the shelf,i remember reading that during the 60’s into the 70’s around 70% of females died within the first 12months of admission.
in my time which was 1980-1988 i witnessed such horrific abuce of societys most vulnerable ( disabled children ), i have heard of disabled children being kicked to death after being sent to oslor house when there had been a fire at the childrens home and they needed to find beds anywhere they could to house these high needs children.
I saw a helpless boy who layed on the floor unable to care for is own most basic needs
( he was extremely disabled unable even to speak or roll over advanced parkinsons)
A nurse kicked his teeth out i was only a meter away, i can still see the horror on this little boys face as the nurse went in for another kick.