Mental patients heavily drugged and isolated
A disturbing government report reveals about 150 people with disabilities in the region of Grampians being controlled by a combination of drugs, sent to solitary confinements and physically restrained at care facilities.
According to the report by Jeffrey Chan, senior practitioner, government-operated facilities are giving their patients medicine up to 4 times more frequent than non-government-operated facilities.
Mr Chan, in his report, calls for a more considerate approach in the care treatment of the disabled, and a review regarding the increasing number of young Victorians - as young as five in some cases - being chemically restrained through the use of tranquilizers and mood stabilizers.
Marry Wooldridge, mental health spokeswoman for the opposition states that a total of 153 patients in the Grampians region have been put through more than 3,200 periods of seclusion, chemical or mechanical restraint.
She said, A person receiving seclusion or restraint in facilities run by the Brumby Government in the Grampians, will, on average, have 49 per cent more treatments than a person in community-run facilities.
Although the statistics were near the average figures, Ms Wooldridge says a total of 153 people affected with the mistreatments, was still a big number.
She said, Our concern is that basic human rights of very vulnerable people are being abused.
Carers or staff in the government-operated facilities, said Ms Wooldridge, are poorly trained and does not have the support or resources to run other practices.
The sources of difficult behaviour were not adequately looked into due to high staff turnover rates, she said. The staff needs training and support, and the government's support to change the way the things are being run.
The concerns have also been repeated by a number of Australia's top experts in intellectual disability, stating that while medications and forms of restraints are sometimes appropriate, the high number of Victorians being placed under restraint highlighted a failure in the system.