Woman had 200 shocks after wrong diagnosis | Stuff.co.nz

200 shocks after wrong diagnosis

A Christchurch woman who was wrongly diagnosed a schizophrenic and given 200 bouts of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has received a formal apology.

Joan Bellingham, 59, is "on cloud nine" that 10 years of fighting the law has "finally come to a really positive end".

The Crown Health Financing Agency (CHFA) said Bellingham was wrongly labelled a drug user, an alcoholic and a schizophrenic.

At 17, Bellingham was training to be a nurse, and she claims she was bullied by one of her tutors because she was a lesbian.

Her tutor, who has since died, drove her to Princess Margaret Hospital in Cashmere, where she was committed and diagnosed with "neurotic personality disorder".

Between 1970 and 1982, Bellingham was admitted to hospital 24 times and had about 200 ECT treatments.

ECT sends an electric shock through the brain.

Bellingham says she was punished with soap and water enemas and given concoctions of medications almost daily.

She was in and out of hospital but was kept highly medicated. In 1973 – three years after she was first committed – she was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, a diagnosis maintained until 1982.

She was later diagnosed with hepatitis C, which her GP thought could have been contracted while in hospital.

"With this apology ... with the fact that they are acknowledging that I wasn't an intravenous drug user, now I can go back to my claim with ACC for medical misadventure," she told The Press.

She has received compensation but cannot disclose the amount.

"It's not a huge amount ... but it's enough for a holiday."

Bellingham said the settlement made her "feel free".

"Even though I always knew I wasn't a drug user, a schizophrenic or an alcoholic, all of those things were still on my notes," she said. "I'm just so thrilled and very excited."

In a letter from the CHFA, chairman Alastair Scott said he hoped the settlement would offer Bellingham some "closure and a sense of peace".

"The hospital failed to take care of you in a way that you could have reasonably expected and for this we are genuinely sorry," he said.

In June 2010, the Crown was facing more than 250 claims from former psychiatric patients.

CHFA chief executive Graeme Bell hoped outstanding claims would be settled this month.

- The Press