www.peterellis.co.nz : seeking justice for Peter Ellis : mail to: [email protected]

Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

Index: Home Page Peter Ellis
Index: Accusations in Institutions

NZ Herald
March 13, 2002

Abuse claims by former Porirua patients hit 25
by Martin Johnston and NZPA

The number of former Porirua Hospital patients complaining they were abused as children at the psychiatric unit has risen to about 25.

Lawyers Sonja Cooper and Jane Hunter have urged former patients to tell them of abuse, and are preparing a case against the Government for compensation.

By last night about 25 people had come forward telling of abuse in the 1960s and 1970s. Most were aged 11 or 12 when they were in the hospital. The youngest was seven.

Last year, 95 former child patients of Lake Alice Hospital near Marton received about $6.5 million in compensation and an apology from the Government for abuse at the mental institution in the 1970s.

A lawyer for former Lake Alice patients, Grant Cameron, has lodged criminal complaints on behalf of 34 of them against five former staff.

Ms Cooper said the former Porirua patients had told of the use of electroconvulsive treatment without anaesthetic and injections of the drug paraldehyde. Some had been sexually abused by adult patients.

"There were beatings and sexual abuse by staff members and beatings by other kids that were authorised and watched over by staff," she said.

One of the former patients, who is now in her late 30s, said she had been left emotionally scarred and dependent on drugs by the treatment she received for three years from the age of 11. She wants someone held accountable.

The Commissioner for Children, Roger McClay, said the Ministry of Health must investigate the Porirua complaints.

"It will be difficult for people to go to court," he said.

He suggested the appointment of possibly a retired High Court judge to investigate the former patients' complaints, "and then determine what might be done to give them some peace for the rest of their lives".

Auckland lawyer Alan Broadbent said that since the Lake Alice compensation deal, he had received several calls from people complaining that they had been mistreated at Auckland psychiatric hospitals.

"But as soon as you say, 'Can you assist me with specific dates and times, can you tell me who else was there at the time, for corroboration', you normally end up with a frustrated client unable to take the matter further because the corroboration issue is too difficult to substantiate."