Abuse in Care: Treatments intended to shock disabled patients out of 'bad behaviour'
Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Children and adults at the Māngere Hospital were subjected to traumatising treatment intended to shock them out of so-called bad behaviour, an inquiry has heard.
Patients were given electric shocks, capsules of ammonia, put in seclusion, doused with fire hoses or cold showers, or ignored as part of “behavioural modification” therapies deployed by staff there in the 1980s.
Psychologist Sheree Briggs worked at Māngere Hospital at the time (now Spectrum Care), and this week gave evidence on what she saw there to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care.
The inquiry has dedicated a series of hearings to the experiences of disabled and deaf survivors, and those who were placed in psychopaedic and psychiatric institutions between 1950 and 1999.
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Psychopaedic was a New Zealand term that specifically referred to the care of people with intellectual disabilities. Briggs was just 18 when she started as a psychopaedic training officer, learning to run the ‘training centre’ for intellectually disabled children handed over by their families.
A registered psychologist today, Briggs said the centre then wanted to change disabled children’s behaviour without much analysis of why it was occurring.
The main technique of that “behavioural modification” therapy at the hospital was tantamount to abuse, she said, and she had to refuse to conduct some of the more violent options like giving electric shocks to children trying to escape the hospital units.
Briggs witnessed staff delivering electric shocks through belts, and giving out ammonia capsules to smell, to stop patients being aggressive towards others.
Sedatives and antipsychotic medication was “overused, and not reviewed,” and used as a form of control not therapy, she said.
Seclusion in “time-out boxes” was one of the most common techniques, she said.
Children would be held tightly and put into one of two time-out boxes until they calmed down – or in some cases, well after that.
They would scream inside the small, thin, roofless boxes, and bang their heads and fists against the walls, she remembers. One boy who had been biting was left inside for over an hour.
Other rooms were also used for time-out and seclusion. Children would be locked away for hours at a time – in some cases seclusion was used when staff needed a break, Briggs said.
“As there were many kids for the staff to look after, I imagine that some kids would have been left in there for longer than intended at times.”
Being doused in cold water in the shower or with a fire hose was a “go-to” technique for people who were incontinent, especially the older residents.
“There were some nasty punishment tactics that staff used when residents soiled themselves, such as using fire hoses or cold showers,” Briggs said.
“This was more commonly used in wards that housed residents with really challenging behaviour, as those wards often attracted a certain type of staff member. These staff had fewer inhibitions when dishing out punishments, compared to the staff on other wards.”
Staff would also spray faces with water from a spray bottle as punishment for things like regurgitation.
Children who bit too often had their teeth pulled out, Briggs said. She later met a group of former Māngere Hospital children in their 30s, none of which had any teeth.
And for all this, there was no course for complaints from staff, residents or their families, Briggs said. When Briggs herself tried to fix something harmful she saw, it was added to her staff record as a complaint.
Briggs said the children in the hospital training centre, who were just toddlers at their youngest, were practically abandoned to the institutions. Parents were actively discouraged from visiting - there wasn’t even a family centre or visiting space.
“If you had a child with a disability it went into an institution and got on with your life. I didn't ever see any parents in the units.”
The Abuse in Care – Royal Commission of Inquiry Disability, Deaf and Mental Health institutional care hearing runs from July 11 to July 20 and is held at Tii Tu Tahi on Khyber Pass Road in Tāmaki-Makaurau.