PSYCHIATRY : A FRAUDULENT AND DANGEROUS PRACTICE

Date Published:

May 09, 2007 03:00 AM

Author: KAMALA HAYMAN

Source: The Press, New Zealand

A Christchurch man says "barbaric" electric shock therapy failed to lift his depression but robbed him of treasured memories.

David O'Neill's health deteriorated in 2004 after a motorcycle accident damaged his liver, bladder and thyroid and sliced his spleen in two.

He had repeated admissions to hospital for complications of his injuries and a series of unsuccessful investigations to find the cause of his chronic abdominal pain.

The frequent hospital stays and constant pain took its toll on his mental health.

"I ended up suicidal," said O'Neill.

He was admitted to Hillmorton Hospital in 2005 for depression. On his second stay, a doctor recommended a 12-session course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which O'Neill consented to.

"I cannot even remember being admitted to the hospital, never mind giving consent for the ECT," he said.

The treatment failed to lift his depression and it destroyed his memory. He has no recollection of his wedding day, the birth of his three children or even his childhood.

O'Neill, now 49, said that before his accident he had cared for his wife – paralysed in a 1985 car accident – and raised their three children.

"Now I can't do anything. I feel as if I'm above myself all the time. I don't feel pain; I'm emotion-free," he said.

ECT was "barbaric" and should be banned, he said.

His family is dismayed it was not consulted and says O'Neill was not well enough to give properly informed consent.

Daughter Julieanne O'Neill said her father no longer felt any love for his family, including his two-year-old grandson.

"My dad has no feelings for him, no feelings for his family. He doesn't feel anything for himself. He is living in an empty shell," she said. "It has taken every single bit of my dad that was ever there away from him."

She said some doctors appeared to see ECT as "the quickest and easiest" solution. "But it's not them that has to go home and have this zombie person to cope with."

Mary O'Neill said the shock treatment had stolen the husband she had known.

Psychiatric Consumers Trust advocate Liz Henderson said ECT could lift depression and transform the lives of patients. "There is a place for it." But it had clearly failed O'Neill.

"It has compounded what was already a difficult situation," Henderson said.

Henderson was concerned that consent was gained without his family's involvement. "He wasn't well enough to make that decision."

Vince Barry, general manager of Canterbury District Health Board mental health services, would not discuss individual patients.

However, he said it was the responsibility of clinicians to determine whether a patient was able to understand the pros and cons of ECT. "It would be unusual for someone to be given ECT without a discussion between the clinical team and close family members," he said.

The Health and Disability Commissioner has decided against a formal investigation of O'Neill's case and referred him to an advocate.

The Accident Compensation Corporation has refused his treatment injury claim, ruling that the ECT did not cause a physical injury.

ECT statistics (July 2004-June 2005):

307 patients given ECT (79 in Canterbury).

22 per cent did not give consent.

0.4% of mental health patients given ECT nationally.

1.1% of Canterbury mental health patients given ECT.

This is how i feel to! no emotion so not depressed but also not happy feel i would be better off dead.

and you keep letting this damaging practice continue, ECT needs to be outlawed. And we should be able to access rehab the same as if we got brain damage from a brick, You keep saying ECT is safer now than it used to be but they have to use more power now to counteract the anesthetic so i would guess more dangerous.

Patients Face Brain Damage with ECT Rules

Patients 'face brain damage' with ECT rules RUTH HILL - The Dominion Post | Monday, 07 April 2008 Opponents of electric shock therapy say the Government has left vulnerable mental patients at risk of serious brain damage by watering down recommendations to curb its use. The Government says it has "fully or partially endorsed" seven of the eight recommendations by Parliament's health select committee - but stopped short of making ECT strictly a treatment of last resort, and has upheld doctors' rights to overrule patients' wishes. The committee's report stemmed from a 2005 petition by Auckland GP Helen Smith, which called for a ban or severe restrictions on the use of ECT on children, pregnant women and the elderly, and stricter regulatory controls, including giving patients the right to refuse. Dr Smith said many New Zealanders would be horrified to learn that their wishes could be over-ridden by a doctor, when they were older. "In some regions of New Zealand, 60 to 70 per cent of ECT patients have not given their consent ... "It's just as barbaric and damaging as cutting out part of a person's brain." Clinical psychologist John Read, from Auckland University, said there had not been a single study in 60 years that shows ECT is effective beyond three or four weeks, and plenty of studies that show it causes memory loss and brain damage. He also had major concerns about the process, which he said had been hijacked by a clique of pro-ECT psychiatrists within the Health Ministry. "The Government has received biased advice, completely without basis in clinical evidence." Hamilton nurse Anna de Jonge, who started the original 1999 petition calling for ECT to be banned, said the Government's response was a whitewash. "Nothing has changed - they are still able to shock old women, pregnant women and children. It's torture, it's what they do to animals in the slaughterhouse." Mrs de Jonge said, through her work with the Patients Rights Advocacy group, she had met many people destroyed by ECT. "Women get shocked far more than men; they fry their brains till they don't know if they are Arthur or Martha and then they lock them up in rest homes till they die." Mental health advocate Mary O'Hagan, a former mental health commissioner, said opinion on ECT was polarised - even among patients. "I've heard some people say it was a lifeline ... but in the history of psychiatry, there have been many treatments that are now considered barbaric, like lobotomies and insulin shock treatment."