Violent and Deplorable Conditions at Psychiatric Hospitals

Earlier this month as part of our Mental Health Campaign MSU Amnesty went to see the Drama Society put on a magnificent production of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. In the play, a rebellious patient McMurphy violently fights Nurse Ratched's rule which costs him his freedom, his health and, ultimately, his life. The novel is set in 1950s America, but could the same thing have happened to McMurphy today in Ireland?

 

St. Brendan’s Hospital

This week significant levels of violence at St. Brendan’s and St. Ita’s psychiatric hospitals has been reported by a European watchdog. At St. Brendan’s Hospital, the death by strangulation of a staff member by a female patient with a billiard cue was only avoided by a last minute by the security office. Meanwhile, an incident of similar nature has taken place in the female unit at St Ita’s hospital, when an elderly patient attempted to choke and other patient during her sleep, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has found.



The report found “poor material conditions” in many of the units visited, and that large scale dormitories combined with a lack of experienced staff contributed to a “volatile atmosphere”. In such an environment that staff’s role was downgraded from providing care and treatment to maintaining order. The living conditions were described by the delegation as being “scarcely compatible with the norms of modern psychiatry”.



MSU Amnesty society has welcomed this publication which criticises the way in which people detained in mental health facilities in Ireland are treated and demands the next government review the Mental Health Act 2001 and initiates legislation to drive towards comprehensive community care to ensure the human rights of all citizens detained by the state are upheld.

“One flew East
  One flew West
  And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.”


RP McMurphy