Chapter 16 — Hospitals

Neglect

Five (5) of the eight hospitals about which the Committee heard reports of neglect were adult hospitals or county homes to which witnesses were admitted as children, and where, as one witness remarked: ‘there was no one there to protect me, no one to look after me’. They reported that they had no contact with other children and no provision was made to address their childhood fears and anxieties. One witness gave the following account of his transfer to a psychiatric hospital when he was 14 years old: The nuns sent me into a mental home for about 2 years. ... I had a fight with one of the lads ... (co-residents)..., they thought I was a bit of a bully. ... Sr ...X... said “you are going away for a bit of a holiday somewhere”. ... I landed up in ...named psychiatric hospital.... She ... (Sr X)... was gone out the door and I couldn’t get out the door and the windows was all locked. ... I was the youngest patient in the hospital, locked in, I was there for about 2 years. It was worse than hell. They gave me shock treatment and drugged me up to the last. Three or 4 of them would tie me down when they were trying to give me injections. They locked me into a padded cell for about a day and night ... when I tried to put my hands through a window.

Nine (9) witnesses reported that the food in the hospitals where they were patients was ‘appalling’, ‘disgusting’, ‘terrible’ and that there was ‘very little of it’. One witness described being nauseated by the food and was force fed when he refused to eat it. Another witness reported being made to eat his food from the floor if he spat it out.

Six (6) witnesses reported that they received little or no education during their time in hospital; one witness believed that due to his physical infirmity he was regarded as intellectually disabled and was consequently not allowed to proceed to second-level education. Another witness was completely bed-ridden for three years during which time she stated she received no schooling or intellectual stimulation of any kind. A witness from one hospital commented that all the children were treated as if they had a ‘mental disability’, and there was no proper assessment of individual needs.

Five (5) witnesses reported that they wet and soiled their beds, dressings and clothing because their toileting needs were not properly attended to by staff and four witnesses reported that because they wet their beds their personal hygiene was neglected; they were left in wet beds for long periods and not assisted to the toilet when required. There’s little things, that for a child they’d be a big thing, but for an adult maybe not, like wanting to go to the toilet and they ... (lay staff)... not listening to you. I’d called a couple of times and they just ignored you and would be giving out to you ... and then I’d have an accident in the cot and they’d beat you.

Emotional abuse

Any other act or omission towards the child which results, or could reasonably be expected to result, in serious impairment of the physical or mental health or development of the child or serious adverse effects on his or her behaviour or welfare.6 This section refers to witness evidence of emotional abuse including; lack of affection and approval, deprivation of family contact and personal denigration which had an effect on witnesses social, emotional and physical functioning and development.

The forms of emotional abuse reported included; exposure to frightening situations, lack of affection, criticism, humiliation, deprivation of family contact, witnessing the abuse of others, and the failure to provide for their emotional needs as children, particularly while in adult hospital facilities. Loss of identity and lack of safety and protection were other components of the emotional abuse reported by witnesses: It’s something you won’t forget, them iron-bar cots... the little one beside me, she was crying, God love us we used put our hands out between the bars and hold her hand for comfort, you know... I never remember any kindness, never heard my name. • I didn’t know what affection was, anyone to put their arm around you, you’d no support....

Seventeen (17) witnesses made 18 reports of emotional abuse. One witness reported being emotionally abused in two different hospital facilities. The 18 reports referred to nine hospital facilities, as follows: Five (5) hospital facilities were each the subject of two to four reports, totalling 14 reports. Four (4) hospital facilities were each the subject of single reports.

The anticipatory fear experienced by witnesses in relation to medical procedures was one of the most frequently reported abuses in this category. Several witnesses emphasised the fear associated with waiting for the day when the treating doctor would come. They recalled a lack of information and reassurance provided by nursing and other staff regarding their painful treatments. I couldn’t understand why people could send you different places and you don’t know what they’re like. ... Nobody told me nothing. ... I had a friend who told me he had to go to hospital himself when he broke his leg ... he was a soccer man. ... He explained to me that he had to go to get his leg fixed up ... (similar medical treatment as witness)..., but nobody else told me anything. ... People used run me life for me, used tell me what to do and where to go.

Many witnesses commented on the frightening reality of being children in a hospital, particularly those who reported being placed in county homes or those who were on wards shared with adult patients. They described observing the pain and, at times, death of other patients without any acknowledgement by staff of the distress it may cause them, as recalled in the following three witness accounts: They ... (co-patients)... were put into beds with old men in the county home, we all shared a big dormitory, old men, boys, all. The old men went in there to die. There wasn’t a week or a day when someone didn’t die. They came in there to die. • The ward that we would have been in you would have had geriatrics, Downs Syndrome people and children, everyone would have been in these big wards ... no segregation or anything. People would have died roaring absolutely roaring during the night, they would have been dead in the morning and taken out then • Then you’d hear the other kids, you’d hear them crying and you’re thinking “what’s happening?”...The thing is you’re a cripple and why should a cripple have to go through that?

Isolation was a form of punishment reported by six witnesses and included being locked in a darkened room, a linen cupboard, an outside shed, being ignored, not spoken to, put to bed early, and excluded from recreational activities and the company of co-patients. Witnesses described such punishments: There was a change of Reverend Mother ...named religious staff .... She came in with a whipping attitude.... I did not want to be an exhibition to someone who was coming in. She came in this afternoon with Health Board people and she says “now show these people what you can do” ...(witness instructed to demonstrate unusual physical dexterity).... I said “no, I don’t want to do it”.... That evening I was summoned to the convent, she came in and she’d tell the nurse to leave, she ridiculed me then for not doing this exhibition. I was banned from everything. ... I wasn’t allowed out anywhere, I had to come straight back to my ward from school, if there was homework I was to do it and then be put to bed, no telly ... the curtains were to be pulled around the bed ... they couldn’t turn off the telly for the other lads. I wasn’t to play with anybody or go around with friends, nothing for 2 weeks. • If you were sick in school and got sent back up to the ward ... you’d have hell to pay. ... They ... (lay staff)...were like the priests, they’d give you penance ... (for being sent back to the ward).... Like one day she ...(lay ancillary worker)... locked me in the ...(linen)... room and she wouldn’t let me out, locked me in ... and I didn’t get out until the following morning, left me there in the dark and I was petrified. ... One of the orderlies came down in the morning to get the linen to make the boys’ beds and he said “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what are you doing in there?” I was sitting in there on a pillow and she’d taken away my chair ... (wheelchair)....

Witnesses also reported being punished for behaviours over which they had no control. For example witnesses who were immobile reported being punished for bed-wetting.

Witnesses who were placed in adult hospital wards, where they were the only child among a large number of elderly patients, also reported that experience as frightening. Witnesses commented that no allowance was made for the fact that they were children, there were no toys to play with and there was no acknowledgement of childhood fears and anxieties. Several witnesses described being treated as objects of amusement by staff, without respect for their feelings: They’d... (lay staff)... make fun of you because of how you spoke and they’d call you names to do with where you’re from. I was from...X... and they’d call you...X..., it sounds funny but it wasn’t funny to a child. You never had the confidence to ask them what are they talking about...it just went over your head, what they said, you weren’t allowed to speak, you just had to go and find out.

A witness who was placed in an adult psychiatric hospital at 14 years of age described being placed in a locked ward with disturbed and institutionalised adults, and told the Committee: ‘I saw things and things happened that I can never talk about.’

Witnessing co-patients being beaten, force-fed and humiliated was reported by five witnesses as a frightening experience. There was a nun called Sr ...X ... she was the worst, most violent, most terrifying person I have come across in my life. ... She had a number of sticks of different shapes and sizes. ... (One day) ... when she called in a lad to her room ... she didn’t close the door and I just remember seeing him ...(co-patient)... get a crack across the side of the head and he didn’t fall backwards and he just slumped like a rag doll, unconscious, and I just knew that one day I’d have to go in there.

Two (2) other witnesses commented on the fact that they believed they were in hospital because they were going to die, although nobody spoke to them directly about this or provided any reassurance to allay their childhood anxieties.