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Accusations of Abuse in
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Index: Accusations in Institutions
Otago
Daily Times
March 13, 2002
Child patient reveals terror of Porirua Hospital
by Fran Tyler, of the Dominion
There were mattresses there, but I
didn't always get one - sometimes I got a blanket. There was nothing on the
floor.
A former child psychiatric patient
who is taking legal action against
A T AGE 11, Gina was locked in a tiny cell in a mental
hospital. For three years she was subjected to sexual, physical and emotional abuse,
injected with painful drugs and given electric shock therapy without
anaesthetic.
Gina (not her real name) does not
know why she was put in
Now in her late 30s, she has been left emotionally scarred and dependent on
drugs as a result of the treatment she received - and she wants someone to be
held accountable.
Gina is one of a small group of former psychiatric patients planning to take a
case against the Crown for the alleged abuse they suffered at
She agreed to speak, with her husband Bob and lawyer Jane Hunter in support, in
the hope that her story may give others who suffered similarly the courage to
join the legal battle ahead.
Gina's story began in the early 1970s when she lived in
Gina's hospital records show it was possible that her mother was suffering from
depression. She was having a difficult time with Gina, who was also having
problems at school. The records do not refer to any particular mental illness.
Regardless of what the paperwork says, 11-year-old Gina had no idea what was
going on when she was dropped off at the hospital.
"No-one told me what was happening. I was taken down to a bathroom, made
to undress and have a bath in front of a man and a woman. After that I was
changed into hospital gear and locked in a cell," Gina says.
The cell, which was to become home for much of the next three years, was barely
wider than the door that kept her locked in.
"There were mattresses there, but I didn't always get one - sometimes I
got a blanket.
"There was nothing on the floor."
Though there were no bars on the small, square window that overlooked the staff
car park, the glass could not be broken. Toys and photographs of her family
were not allowed.
Her daily routine allowed her to leave her cell only briefly each morning for a
bath and to use the toilet. Each time, she had to be accompanied by one or two
nurses. Occasionally, she and the other children in the
cell block were taken to a geriatric ward where they were forced to make beds
and empty bed pans.
After several weeks in the cell, she was moved to a women's ward, but was soon
moved back after she refused to take her medication.
"The medication made me feel sick and gave me headaches," she
explains.
"I tried to tell them."
As a punishment, Gina was held down and injected with paraldehyde, which caused
immense pain.
"It was an all-over pain, like maybe having broken glass injected into
your veins and going all over your body. To me, the pain seemed to last a long
time. I had no way of telling time, but it seemed like forever."
Nights in the cell were particularly traumatic. Along with the noise of other
patients kicking at their doors to be let out to use the toilet, Gina would lie
awake listening for the telltale jangle of keys. The keys signalled the arrival
of a male staff member whom Gina believed was a nurse, who sexually abused her
and a girl in the neighbouring cell.
"I tried not to listen if he went into her cell, but you could hear
everything."
The abuse went on almost nightly and, Gina believes, with the knowledge of a
female nurse who worked with him. If she tried to fight him off, he would hit
her, she says.
She was regularly strip-searched by the same man for no apparent reason and was
also sexually assaulted by another male staff member. Gina complained to other
nurses about what was happening but was punished for "telling lies".
"That's how I realised you didn't say anything."
For five to six weeks, when Gina was aged 12, she was subjected to
electroconvulsive therapy, administered without anaesthesia. Her treatment was
different to other patients in that she was not told it was coming, not
prepared for it and it was not administered with a doctor present. After the
first time, Gina says, she would listen out for them.
"Until they got to your cell, you didn't know if they were coming for you.
If there were two or three or sometimes four of them, you knew something bad was
going to happen.
"I worked out that if I was given extra drugs earlier, something was going
on. After the first time, they'd have to drag me there - no one's going to go
there willingly, not after the first time."
Gina said staff would drag her by an arm or a leg, with her kicking and
screaming down the long hospital corridors.
Once inside the room, they would hold her down on the bed and attach the
electrodes to her head. She was never given anything to bite on.
She described the shock treatment as very painful. "It was like lightning
in your head and hearing the thunder."
Afterward, she would be returned to her cell where she suffered headaches and
blackouts for several days.
Then one day, again without explanation, Gina was moved to a ward and had full
privileges restored. A few weeks later, her grandmother, grandfather and mother
arrived to pick her up.
The treatment she received at Porirua has left Gina permanently scarred
emotionally and physically. She suffered flashbacks and had to take sleeping
pills as a teenager.
She continues to have back problems, which she links to being kicked in the
back at Porirua. As a result of the prescribed drugs, she has ended up
drug-dependent. Gina has also been unable to work.
"I've never had the chance to have a job, to know what it's like to earn
my own money. It's really hard to get up every day to do the things that other
people find really easy. I get upset really easily and I get angry. There are
days that I just can't cope with normal life."
Bob was forced to give up his job to look after her and their three children.
Gina says she knows there are other people who suffered similar things at
Porirua and wants them to speak out and put their cases forward.
"They have a right to put the blame where it belongs. It's really hard to
do it on your own. It's taken a lot of courage to come forward, but it helps
you deal with it."