4 February 2009

Quamby to be the new nuthouse?

| johnboy
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The ABC reports that the shut down youth detention facility of Quamby is now a political football with world+dog having ideas about what it should be used for.

I was particularly struck by this idea:

    But Greens MLA Amanda Bresnan has suggested the former Quamby site be used as an interim forensic mental health facility once the new jail opens.

    “That should be considered by the Government particularly because we don’t have a time frame or an exact time frame for when the forensic mental health facility will be built and completed,” she said.

    “We think that’s something which should be considered because obviously facilities for forensic mental health patients are inadequate at the moment.”

Mental health appears to have come full circle.

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Pommy bastard8:46 am 08 Feb 09

Rose
Why not keep your obsessions out of what was a reasonable debate?

Oh, and before deciding to prescribe surgical procedures for people, at least learn how to spell them, (or at least learn to spell.)

Rose1, people are found guilty of crimes they are innocent of all the time. Look at Lindy Chamberlain – great for her kids if they’d whipped her in for a lobotomy.

The legal process we have isn’t perfect, but it’s better than most places in the world, and I like it.

Granny
Of course there would be not doubt that they were guilty, rockspiders are sick people, I have never heard of them turning there lives around, once they get out of prison they reafend, psychos who are violent should have a labotomie, they are born that way, you will find through the years when growing up they have had a violent temper

swamiOFswank9:48 am 07 Feb 09

And Rose1 those are pretty sweeping statements “can not [sic] be rehabilitated” is a fallacy (unless of course you can produce evidence proving your statement).

In terms of your statement about “psychos”, there but for the grace of providence go thee. Beware.

Pommy bastard9:39 am 07 Feb 09

Why the hell introduce the subject of “rockspiders” into this debate?

Well, Rose1, what if they’re not guilty? Whoops, too late …! Sorry about your testicles and brain and stuff ….

Hi! I think all rockspiders should have a labotomie and castrated, as they can not be rehabilated, as for psycho’s they should also have a a labotomie, unlike Frances Farmer she was a victim and was totally wrong what they did to her, she did not need a labotomie, it distroyed an highly intelligent human being.

gun street girl9:27 am 06 Feb 09

The Calvary unit probably feels friendlier because it only keeps voluntary patients (or used to; not sure about these days). PSU has a casemix of higher acuity patients, and is more edgy as a result.

I wouldn’t pay much heed to the “broken biscuits” conspiracy. They all come from the same tea trolleys that roam around the hospital. I really don’t think the tea ladies deliberately save up all the broken ones to hand out to the psyche patients (or any other patients, for that matter).

7B was really, really horrible. So was 12 B for that matter. Actually, so is PSU, but for different reasons. As soon as they’re out of the locked ward, I’d always wrangle permission to take people out for a coffee (Cafe Hoz if not allowed to leave the grounds) and a walk. 5A at Calvary (and whatever its replacement is called) is much friendlier.

When you think about it, they really haven’t managed to treat psych patients too well at Woden, not if facilities are anything to go by. A friend tells me the broken biscuits always ended up in psych (12B at the time). We think it was based on the theory that no one would be well enough to notice or care. They were, and they did.

Yeah 7B was the psych ward for a while but there are obvious problems with having a psych unit 7 storeys up…

Pommy bastard7:44 pm 05 Feb 09

Granny said :

People who have been diagnosed with mental illness are listened to or believed even less than children. The scope for abuse is huge.

Who by?

gun street girl6:48 pm 05 Feb 09

Quokka said :

GSG – 12B is now the rehab ward but used to be the psych unit before the current unit was built (maybe 15 years ago).

Yeah, I know. I was just pointing out that the current 12B shouldn’t be confused with its previous incarnation (nor should 7B – I think that served as the psyche ward for a while in the past, too).

GSG – 12B is now the rehab ward but used to be the psych unit before the current unit was built (maybe 15 years ago).

People who have been diagnosed with mental illness are listened to or believed even less than children. The scope for abuse is huge.

Obviously some middle ground is needed, but certainly not a full swing of the pendulum.

Sorry, jimbocool, but Annie could be my sister. That may not be recent to you, but it is certainly not the dark ages. She is a living, breathing woman that I am in contact with. You can sneer, oh that was then, but I can tell you this very day that my third grade child has no communication system and no way of making her needs and desires heard.

Who knows what it’s like for these people? You are assuming they have communication systems. Assuming they are taught to read and spell. Think again. My nine-year-old is illiterate and silent.

In general, I would say that most parents are choosing to care for their children themselves these days rather than give them up and the increased support by government and society has been helpful in this decision.

“Annie’s coming out” was over thirty years ago, Granny! A time when it wasn’t understood that people with cerebral palsy could communicate and could lead relatively independent lives. Not a good comparison. Chelmsford too was over thirty years ago and was a private hospital and Dr Harry Bailey (who ran it) a criminal.
What we’re talking about here is the need for long term residential care for mentally ill adults – for people who cannot look after themselves. If it’s acceptable for our old people to go into residential care when they cannot look after themselves, why is it unaccepatble for the mentally ill?

gun street girl said :

How many children are we still sending down into the pits?

That is because we have kept the new model of sending them to school though, perhaps, rather than the old model of sending them out to work instead ….

Whilst there may no longer be a need technologically for smaller people in mines, the kinds of work that would suit a five or six year old would be quite unskilled and still open to all kinds of human rights abuses I should think. The older model was reprehensible and people sensibly eschew it.

However, I do agree that something needs to be done, but under the older models they were locked away and if they complained to family or friends they were not believed because they were ‘insane’.

If you want to know about institutional life even in recent times, this is an excellent link.

gun street girl11:35 am 05 Feb 09

History also shows evolution, mostly for the better. For instance, how many lobotomies do you think are carried out on psyche patients these days? How many advocacy groups are there out there for psyche patients, compared to 20 years ago? How many children are we still sending down into the pits? Look, I’m not saying the system is perfect or not open to abuse – it’s still got a long way to go – but it’s also overly pessimistic to think it’ll inevitably swing back to the bad old days. Frankly, the present model ain’t working. It’s letting people down, and it’s exposing them to harm. We mightn’t be perpetuating hurt directly (as was done in days gone past), but we are administering it indirectly by upholding the system in its current form.

Yet history shows exactly that. I would think it would have to be a different model altogether. The old institutions were appalling.

gun street girl11:26 am 05 Feb 09

Frances Farmer (will have her revenge of Seattle).

I don’t agree with citing past mistakes/unethical behaviour as a reason why we shouldn’t revisit old ideas. If anything, they should merely stand as a warning of what can go wrong if we are not vigilant. We are risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we are determined that we will inevitably repeat past wrongs.

Frances Farmer

No, sorry, not Frances Fisher, I can’t remember her name, somebody help me!

I am glad to hear it, gun street girl.

Yes, you can set ethical standards and monitor them, but that did not save the victims of Chelmsford ‘deep sleep’ or people like Frances Fisher.

But I do agree that you can go too far the other way, as I have said, and I do very much hope they find the right middle ground and really get the balance right. I have a lot of empathy for carers of the mentally ill, and finding a solution to the difficulties surrounding the unique circumstances of a loved one can be very difficult.

+1 GSG. I’d also state that a lot of mentally ill people are still being institutionalised – the new institutions being prisons rather than hospitals. I think rather than using such polemic terms as “institutionalisation” we need to think more along the lines of ‘residential care’. What goes on at the PSU is not residential care, nor is it treamtent – it’s crisis management. Once the crisis is over (usually through re-establishment of medication) patients are sent back out to their generally unsupported lives outside, with only a hopelessly overworked case manager to check on them once in a while. Genuine residential care would allow for treatment beyond just re-establishing medication – actual therapy could occur leading to improved outcomes.

gun street girl10:36 am 05 Feb 09

Living on the streets makes you pretty powerless and open to all sorts of abuse, too. This has, unfortunately, become the proxy for many people who would otherwise have been institutionalised. I’m not denying that institutions can be places wherein individuals in positions of power can abuse the trust given to them, but on the other hand, we can monitor institutions, set ethical standards, and ensure good care is given and received, whereas we can’t apply that standard in the community.

FYI: 12B is the rehab ward of TCH. The current PSU has its problems; granted – but it’s a far cry from an inhumane, uncaring place.

gun street girl said :

Institutions needn’t be instantly equated to the bad old days of unethical care.

No, that is true, but it does tend to happen because people locked in institutions are powerless to varying degrees and abusive people are naturally attracted to situations where people are relatively powerless – particularly animals, children, people with a disability and the mentally ill.

I had a partner with paranoid schizophrenia once, and I found 12B to be bad enough even when necessary. Frankly, I would rather my loved ones were dead than ‘living’ that way. Even one week was awful – just awful.

As I said earlier, I do think that this is a good use of Quamby, however, and I do understand the difference. There obviously needs to be such a facility, just as there needs to be a prison.

I hope that one day we will find a better way than both, and as a society we will really be able to help people to get better and make real changes that will benefit us all. It is a nice dream.

*sigh*

gun street girl9:04 am 05 Feb 09

Granny said :

I think it would be a very worthwhile use of the facility, but would certainly not like to see a return to the institutional mindset of the past in mental health care approaches in general.

Firstly, I think there’s a slight confusion in this thread regarding the difference between mental health patients, and forensic mental health patients (the latter group are those who would be housed at Quamby). The argument of institutionalisation of mental health patients in general is a hot topic – whilst I do not adopt the uniform “lock ’em all up” attitude (nor do most people), I do think we have swung the other way to the point of harm. Community care for a lot of these patients simply isn’t working. Is it more humane and moral to have these guys live in squalor, at risk to themselves, in the community, than detain them in institutions wherein they can be cared for? Institutions needn’t be instantly equated to the bad old days of unethical care.

Pommy bastard7:54 am 05 Feb 09

Unfortunately there will always be a small sub set of mental health patients who will need incarceration of periods of their life, in order to protect themselves * or the public. Canberra is woefully equipped to deal with these patients. As removing them interstate, as often happens now, actually prolongs their rehabilitation needs, a good purpose built, or purpose adapted, facility is necessary.

*Mental health patients (not “loonys” please) are far more likely to harm themselves than others, by a large degree of magnitude.

won`t be happenin johnboy,the greens are the target of my iggorant pregudis

I think it would be a very worthwhile use of the facility, but would certainly not like to see a return to the institutional mindset of the past in mental health care approaches in general.

mr grumpy said :

amanda bresnard=greens =loonies running the nuthouse

Here’s a crazy thought… maybe it’s worth debating the merits of proposals as they arise rather than flinging poo on he basis of ignorance and prejudice?

amanda bresnard=greens =loonies running the nuthouse

Hmm, actually might not be such a bad idea. Probably better than all the current alternatives (interstate units, City watchhouse, Remand centre, Psych Unit at Woden)

They’d want to improve the security quite a lot. After all, Quamby didn’t keep in the teenagers incarcerated there very well at all, at all.

Pommy bastard11:08 am 04 Feb 09

It would be nice if people did not refer to the mentally ill as “loonys”, there but for the grace of god etc…

Talk of dangerous, mentally unstable criminals who should be locked up forever, and far, far away from anywhere respectable like Red Hill, is all well and good but for one minor detail: prisons are the new psych institutions.

Not all those mentally ill criminals are extremely dangerous.

Should be done. Let’s all be caring and sharing but at teh end of the day, dangerous or unpredictable loonies are in many ways more of a problem then just plain vanilla criminals, and so need to be under control.

Next step is a proper facility for ordinary loonies.

gun street girl9:25 am 04 Feb 09

jimbocool said :

GSG is close – they are still hospitals, but with an emphasis on security as the patients are extremely dangerous.

Ayup; that’s what I meant. 🙂

Currently the most dangerous of the ACT’s forensic patients are sent to the Kestrel Wing of Morriset Hospital, which is near Newcastle. Unfortunately the lack of forensic facilities in the ACT, and the distance to Morriset, means that patients are sent to jail, or to Henessey House (allegedly secure, but not really), or released into the community. There was a case a few years back of a resident of Havelock House on being released by a magistrate returning to his room and attacking his flatmate with an axe – because the flatmate had called in the Crisis Team.

There’s only one section of BHH that they use for forensic patients, yes? Have been there once or twice; didn’t feel safe.

I totally agree. Sounds like a smart move and seems like it could be a relatively quick win.

GSG is close – they are still hospitals, but with an emphasis on security as the patients are extremely dangerous. Currently the most dangerous of the ACT’s forensic patients are sent to the Kestrel Wing of Morriset Hospital, which is near Newcastle. Unfortunately the lack of forensic facilities in the ACT, and the distance to Morriset, means that patients are sent to jail, or to Henessey House (allegedly secure, but not really), or released into the community. There was a case a few years back of a resident of Havelock House on being released by a magistrate returning to his room and attacking his flatmate with an axe – because the flatmate had called in the Crisis Team.

captainwhorebags9:07 am 04 Feb 09

This will no doubt be met with outrage from Pottsy’s mates in Red Hill all panicking about mental cases on the loose burning their palm trees.

gun street girl9:06 am 04 Feb 09

Forensic mental health facilities (as distinct from general mental health facilities) are prisons, by and large. I’m not sure how suitable Quamby would be, from a safety point of view, though.

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