OFFER OF A FORUM TO SORT CLAIMS A SICK JOKE

The Manawatu Standard
December 9 2004
by Lee Matthews

The Government is cynically banking on former pyschiatric patients giving up and going away by making justice too difficult to attain, say former Lake Alice Hospital residents in Palmerston North. 

Sharyn Collis and Stephen McMahon * were 1970s Lake Alice patients tortured with electroconvulsive treatment without anaesthetic. They were disgusted yesterday to hear that Attorney-General Margaret Wilson has refused to hold a public inquiry into hospital abuse before 1992. Instead, she has offered to set up a non-public forum to allow former patients, their families and hospital staff a chance to air their complaints and stories. 

Any compensation for abuse would have to be sought by suing the Government through the courts, Ms Wilson said. 

"The Government knows that we can't afford to go through the courts. Who could afford the legal fees?" Mr McMahon * said. 

"And some group encounter session to talk about it? She (Ms Wilson) knows bloody well nobody will turn up for that . . .who would bother? It's not going to help to sit and talk about it." 

Mrs Collis agreed. She has spent her life since Lake Alice trying to move on from being raped and given painful paraldehyde injections and unanaesthetised ECT as punishments, and said group discussions of old hurts would not help her. 

"It's a joke, surely," she said. "A sick joke. When are we going to get justice? This just smells like the whole thing is too hard for the Government, so they're walking away from what happened." 

Mr McMahon * said what had happened to him at Lake Alice had wrecked his ability to function as a wage-earning adult in society. He could not work, dealing as he did with a medically prescribed morphine addiction that had come as a result of the medication needed to combat headaches arising from ECT without anaesthetics. 

Money as compensation was only part of the solution. Mr McMahon * said his compensation, part of the first $6.5 million class-action suit against Lake Alice, didn't repair his life. 

"I'm tired of being labelled a compensation-seeking bludger," he said. "It's not fair to apologise to and compensate some of the Lake Alice victims, yet tell people who were at Porirua and other places in the South Island that they should go to group therapy and talk about it." 

Mrs Collis said her experiences at Lake Alice had left her isolated and profoundly distrustful of other people.

WITNESS TO BOYS DEATH BELIEVES THERE WAS A COVER UP

NZ Herald
June 19 2004
by Stephen Cook

A chill cuts through the air as Stephen Lindsay slumps on to his sofa bed. As he pores over pages of crumpled documents trying to piece together his thoughts, his eyes suddenly bulge and dart to the other side of his cramped and cluttered haunt. 

Then his composure melts. 

Fighting back the tears, he rubs his eyes, cupping his head in his hands as memories flood back of the day 36 years ago he lost his best mate - 11-year-old Clement Matthews, who he says "died like a dog" behind the concrete walls of Kingseat psychiatric hospital. 

"There are times like now I feel him here in this room with me. It's strange," he says. 

Lindsay takes a few moments, wipes his eyes and begins to tell his story: a story he says exposes the brutal indifference to the mentally ill and the dark side of New Zealand's mental health system. 

And it appears Lindsay, despite a long history of psychiatric problems, is being taken seriously. Based solely on his witness account of that day 36 years ago, police have reopened the case into Matthews' death. 

The Matthews case is adding weight to calls for a commission of inquiry into claims of abuse at psychiatric institutions around the country in the 1960s and 70s. 

Lindsay is one of many former child patients at psychiatric hospitals such as Kingseat and Porirua who have filed claims in the High Court seeking compensation for alleged sexual, physical and mental abuse. 

Most people have fond memories of their childhood. Not Stephen Lindsay. When he thinks of his childhood, all he remembers are beatings, abuse and terrifying social isolation. 

Now lost in a deep depression he can't outrun, the scars of five tortured years at Kingseat are seared into his soul. His days are filled with despair. Thoughts of suicide regularly occupy his mind. 

To say Lindsay had it tough as a child is an understatement. He was the second of nine children. His father was an alcoholic, his mother, he says, a detached, unloving figure. 

His father's scathing tongue and brutal demeanour often reduced the young Lindsay to a cowering shell. He recalls many a time his father came home from the pub, argued violently with his mother and then pushed his head through a wall. 

Before long Lindsay began to rebel, his innocence replaced with feelings of self-hate, loathing and a repugnance for authority figures. At 9 years old, Lindsay became too much of a burden for his parents and was packed off to live with relatives. Before long, they too had had enough of the wayward boy. 

In 1963, after various stints with foster families, Lindsay was sent to the Mt Wellington Residential School, a home for "emotionally disturbed" children. His hospital records from that time stated he was emotionally disturbed - "symptoms related to a long period of gross rejection on the part of the mother". 

Lindsay's behaviour, punctuated by episodes of stealing and lying, did not improve and in June 1965, at 12, he was sent to Kingseat. 

"I remember arriving at Kingseat and how terrified I was of the other residents. On my arrival I thought it was the worst day of my life. I didn't know the worst was still to come." 

That day finally came in April 1968. 

Stephen Lindsay first met Clement Matthews in July 1965. Matthews was only 8 at the time. According to Department of Health records, an overweight Matthews had been admitted to Kingseat because of "mental subnormality associated with disturbed behaviour of an aggressive nature". 

Lindsay and "the chubby Maori boy with the big brown eyes and cheeky grin" soon began kicking around together. They would amuse themselves by playing practical jokes on other patients, often working in tandem to make life as difficult as possible for hospital staff. They became great friends. 

"We enjoyed getting up to mischief. Clem had a real cheeky streak in him. It used to annoy the hell out of the other patients, but he couldn't help himself," Lindsay recalls. 

Matthews, Lindsay remembers, lived for food. It was like a tonic to cleanse his troubled mind. 

And he'd do anything to get it. Even if that meant robbing the lockers of fellow patients or raiding the kitchen cupboards. 

It is ironic that food, something Matthews lived for, would, if Lindsay's account is true, play such a key part in his death. 

For Lindsay, April 28 was like any other day at Kingseat hospital. The morning began with the normal 6am wake-up call and, as usual, a visit to Matthews' room. 

The two headed for the showers and then breakfast, one of Matthews' favourite times of the day. Then it was off to the hospital day-room where they spent most of the day mingling with other patients on the ward. On that particular autumn day there was a lot of excitement among patients and staff because of a soccer match. 

The overweight 11-year-old wasn't a soccer enthusiast, but as staff were preoccupied with the match, there was a chance to zero in on the kitchen. 

With the day-room directly adjacent to the kitchen and dining room and with bread and butter already on the tables, Matthews pounced. 

But before he had a chance to swallow the piece of bread he had swiped, Lindsay claims the boy was grabbed around the neck by a staff nurse and wrenched to the ground. 

Then the nurse, he says, delivered the emphatic blow, a stiff kick to Matthews' back. Lindsay remembers Matthews' screams piercing the air, followed then by a gentle sobbing. 

"I had heard something snap. It was like a branch breaking. I knew at the time his back was broken." 

Lindsay claims the other nurse on duty watched without interest. Lindsay immediately went to comfort Matthews, but says all he could get from the boy was a groan as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Hospital staff , he says, dragged Matthews up a flight of stairs before dumping him on his bed and locking the door. 

The next morning, when Lindsay went to Matthews' room, half expecting to see his friend ready and dressed for breakfast, he found Matthews lying face down and barely breathing. 

Medical staff were called and 15 minutes later pronounced him dead. 

A pathologist's report found Matthews had died of pneumonia, a finding upheld by the Auckland coroner. 

Among the documentation in the coroner's report obtained by the Weekend Herald is a statement from Kingseat's medical officer who says that Matthews' health "immediately prior to his death had caused no undue concern". 

While there are statements from Graham Evans, the doctor who pronounced Matthews dead, day nurse Milton Ferguson, who tried to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and Constable Paul Sherriff, who was called, no statements were taken from the two nurses who were on duty the day before. 

Auckland pathologist Jane Vuletic, who has been asked to examine the case for police, said yesterday she could not go into specifics but confirmed that anyone suffering from pneumonia would exhibit symptoms such as chest pains and a high temperature at least five days before dying of the disease. 

Lindsay is in no doubt about what happened. 

"This has been a massive cover-up. Clem didn't die of pneumonia. He wasn't even sick. 

"All I want is some acknowledgement of what really happened. Then maybe this poor kid can rest in peace." 

Police have interviewed the nurse who allegedly assaulted Matthews and he has told them that although he can recall Matthews being a patient at Kingseat, he does not remember the death or whether he was even on duty at the time. 

He emphatically denies ever assaulting Matthews. The Weekend Herald attempted to speak to him, but he declined a request for an interview. 

The other nurse named by Mr Lindsay, now retired and living in Manurewa, said he recalled Matthews, but did not know the circumstances surrounding his death. 

" ... At the slightest irritation, as I remember Clement, he used to throw himself on the floor and start kicking," he said. "If it happened in the dining room, he kicked tables, chairs, staff, other patients. 

"I don't believe anybody would have kicked Clement, because it didn't happen. I was aware of staff mistreating patients occasionally, but they were sacked. 

"Kingseat was one of the best hospitals in New Zealand. It was a kindly bunch of staff. Patients were well cared for." 

Detective Sergeant Dave French said yesterday there was no time limit on the inquiry. 

But it was tough going as some of the staff had since died while others were now very elderly.

PATIENT LEFT TO CALL AMBULANCE FROM CLINIC CAR PARK

Keira Stephensonkstephenson@nzdoctor.co.nzMonday 02 March 2015, 4:31PM  A 72-year-old woman who was vomiting up blood after spinal surgery was sent away from an A&M clinic and told to call her own ambulance.

Instead of being assessed and triaged by the registered nurse on duty, the woman lay in the back of her daughter’s car in the clinic car park while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

In hospital she was diagnosed with multiple stomach ulcers.

In a report released today, health and disability commissioner Anthony Hill says the nurse failed to assess the woman, failed to contact the ambulance service, and failed to offer any assistance monitoring her as she awaited an ambulance.

However, the registered nurse told the HDC she believed the ambulance service would respond faster if the patient rather than the clinic called.

The ambulance service has backed up this statement.

Nurse talks loudly across reception area

The patient’s daughter says she recalls the nurse saying loudly across the reception area that they could not do anything for her mother if her complaint involved blood and then asking if she was a New Zealand resident.

Then the nurse asked her to call an ambulance from outside the building, the patient’s daughter told the HDC.

She sensed undertones of racism in their treatment.

All patients' residency queried

The registered nurse told the HDC she could not recall the incident, but asks all patients needing an ambulance about their residency status as it affects whether they will be charged or not.

The receptionist at the time says she recollects the registered nurse explaining in a very kind and caring way that there would be a long wait time at the clinic and the woman would probably be sent to hospital anyway, so it was up to her whether she stayed at the clinic or called an ambulance.

She recalls the nurse saying that for the clinic to call the ambulance they would have to put the woman into the system and the daughter could call the ambulance privately from outside the front of the building.

The nurse told the HDC she accepts she made a mistake and should have triaged the patient and called the ambulance, but she does not accept she asked the daughter to call an ambulance from outside the building, saying there must have been a communication breakdown.

Departures from expected standards severe

“Departures from expected standards were severe,” Mr Hill says.

He finds the nurse in breach both for her failure to undertake initial assessment of the patient, and her failure to facilitate a safe transfer and makes adverse comment over handover to the ambulance service.

He recommends the nurse write a letter of apology to the woman’s family, that she undertake training in effective patient communication and report back to the HDC on changes in her practice.

Mr Hill did not find the A&M clinic in breach.

The clinic believes that had its policies and procedures been followed the situation would not have occurred, but has updated its policies anyway.

NURSE SEXUALLY EXPLOITED MENTAL HEALTH PATIENT

ASHLEIGH STEWART

Last updated 16:13, February 16 2015

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A mental health patient with alcohol issues was sexually exploited by a male nurse who seduced her with a bottle of wine, the health and disability commissioner has found. 

The female patient, a client of the Community Mental Health Service (MHS), became sexually involved with a registered nurse who was directly involved in her care, Health and Disability Commissioner Anthony Hill said in a report released today.

She suffered from major depressive disorder with associated anxiety and panic attacks, alcohol related issues, and a history of suicidal thoughts - which increased in stressful situations.

The pair had "intermittent social contact prior to the time the nurse became directly involved in her care", Hill said.

After arriving at the woman's house in a district health board car, the nurse pulled out a bottle of wine he said was for her.

The pair then had sex, and the nurse left soon after. They had sex again later that day, and the nurse said he would return another day with more wine. He said he had always "fancied her".

The woman then complained to her MHS case manager about the nurse.

Hill said the nurse had breached professional boundaries, knowing the woman was a patient of the MHS.

He was also aware the woman was vulnerable and had mental health issues, including problems with alcohol.

Hill said the nurse had "sexually exploited" the woman by having sex with her, giving her alcohol and offering to bring more.

He recommended the nurse undertake training on professional boundaries and that the Nursing Council of New Zealand consider a review of his competence.

The nurse would be referred to the independent director of proceedings to decide if further action should be taken.

The district health board that employed the nurse was not found to be in breach of the code of health and disability consumer rights, but Hill recommended they consider compulsory annual up-skilling for staff on professional boundaries.

The nurse has apologised to the woman.

Names and locations have been suppressed.

 - The Press

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BLUE MESSIAH book about being mentally ill in nz

Lake Alice recalled

JOCELYN REIN

Last updated 05:00 21/04/2010

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JASON OXENHAM

BLUE DAY BUT A GOOD DAY: Author and schizophrenia sufferer Peter Finlay will celebrate the launch of his first book tomorrow night.

HIS BOOK has been a longer time coming than most, but then Peter Finlay's life has not been a straightforward one.

The Grey Lynn author will tomorrow night celebrate at the launch of his autobiographical novelette Blue Messiah, an account of his experiences with mental illness and his time in infamous psychiatric hospital Lake Alice.

He's been working on the book for almost 15 years but has only been well enough to get around to publishing it recently.

The story begins in 1986 when Peter, a paranoid schizophrenic, had gone off his medication and had a "terrible fight" with police on the streets of Palmerston North.

He was thrown into the acute unit of Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital in Rangitikei where he stayed for three months.

The institution, which has been the subject of numerous historic abuse allegations, was a scary place, says Peter.

"The worst thing about Lake Alice was the boredom," he says.

He remembers being forced to stay awake, despite the heavy medication which made patients sleepy.

"All I wanted to do was lie down or have a private shower," he says.

The second half of Blue Messiah covers the two years after he was discharged from Lake Alice and compares his time in the hospital with his recovery in the community.

He says receiving occupational therapy and being able to chat for a couple of hours a week over a cup of tea with fellow sufferers made a world of difference.

"Having something like that is all you need to get you through. It improves your quality of life."

Peter was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 26 and has spent the last 20 years of his life in and out of "unwellness" and various hospitals and mental health facilities.

He says it's been a constant struggle to establish the right medication and stay on it.

"Once you come well again you tend to forget some of the thoughts. But I'm a happier person when I'm on medication," he says.

The 52-year-old Grey Lynn resident says he's been well for the last three years and the right dose of medication has enabled him to complete the book and attend creative writing classes at the Toi Ora Live Arts Trust, the publisher of his book.

Toi Ora manager Erwin van Asbeck says funding for the book has come from the Frozen Funds Trust.

The trust was established in 2008 to distribute grants from a $5 million fund, originating from interest accrued on patients welfare benefits while they were institutionalised during the 1970s and 80s.

More than half the money was returned to its owners in the 1990s and the rest is used as grants for mental health projects and services.

Erwin says mental health has come a long way in the last 30 years, with a focus now on community care.

"There's much more awareness," he says.

"Patients don't necessarily end up going to hospital."

The book is being launched tomorrow at Alleluya cafe in St Kevin's Arcade, Karangahape Rd, at 5.30pm.

- Auckland City Harbour News