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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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The fate of hundreds of
historic compensation claims by former psychiatric patients who say they were
abused while institutionalised is now in the hands of the high court. The former patients
want the way cleared to sue the government for mistreatment dating back
several decades at Porirua Hospital. A former patient, who
wants to remain anonymous, claims that he was abused at the psychiatric
hospital, where he was sent by his mother when he was just 14-years-old. He says he was
"thrown to the floor by two nurses", and had his "head bashed
on the floor till I was unconscious and then kicked in the ribs". Now the court will
decide if he and other former patients can sue the government for alleged
mistreatment. More than 100 patients
have come forward with claims, and they want millions of dollars in
compensation. "It needs to be
acknowledged that this was done to us and that it shouldn't have been done to
us," says the patient. But Crown lawyers argue
that the treatment was normal for the times. "What is alleged
are acts either intended for the purpose of carrying on a hospital, or for
the purpose of care, or the purpose of control," says Crown lawyer Lisa
Hansen. Former patients claim
it was outright abuse. "Multiple assaults
by staff members...being punched hard in the eye, he has described the
concrete pill, being thrown up into the air and dropped onto the concrete
floor," says former patients' lawyer Sonja Cooper. But the crown says it
will only consider certain cases. "The line is to be drawn at sexual
assaults," says Hanson. The judge is expected
to decide in August whether the former patients will be able to hold the
crown to account. |
