Chapter 16 — Hospitals

Sexual abuse

Witnesses reported that they were sexually abused in their hospital beds, in examination rooms and cubicles, doctors’ offices, bathrooms, and toilets. Incidents of sexual abuse were described as unobserved by others and generally as occurring in discrete and isolated locations.

Six (6) of the reports of sexual abuse were single incidents, including four accounts of rape or penetrative assault. The witnesses described being confronted in their beds by men they did not recognise who motioned to them to keep quiet while they digitally penetrated and/or fondled their breasts or genitals. I was awakened by this guy and he was half into the bed, he was at me down there... (genital area) ...I tried to move up in the bed and he punched me pretty hard around the body. I kept quiet then. I don’t know how long he was there...I don’t know who it was, there was no word spoken at all...distressed ...I found that the worst of all, I can see him looking at me. I thought he had a short white coat on...I couldn’t be sure...any doctor who ever came in there... (to the hospital)... had a longish coat... I was wishing I could meet him, and if I had a shotgun...

Four (4) witnesses described being inappropriately fondled and penetrated, both digitally and by objects, in situations where there was inadequate supervision. The witnesses reported being isolated by older patients who abused them. One witness reported being forced into a toilet cubicle by an older boy on three occasions where he was inappropriately fondled and anally penetrated with an object. A female witness admitted to hospital with an acute illness at six years of age reported being fondled and abused on several occasions by an older boy while another male patient kept watch. The witness reported that the ward was generally well supervised and she was well cared for by the staff. She had no family contact during her hospital admission. Another witness reported being sexually abused by fondling by an adult male patient in circumstances where the witness was not adequately supervised.

There were three male staff members identified by name as sexually abusive by witnesses, two of whom were reported to have been medical doctors, and a third was described as a hospital orderly. He ... (named doctor)... proceeded to open my trousers and pulled me pants down to me knees and started to masturbate me and ask me questions, “when did I last have sex with a girl?” ... And then he asked me to stand up and turned me around and ...witness described anal penetration....

Six (6) witnesses reported being sexually abused by unnamed male and female nursing, care and ancillary staff. As previously stated another witness reported being raped in a hospital ward as a young child by an unidentified man whom he believed was the priest who provided a pastoral service to the hospital. I had been sexually abused in that home ... (named hospital).... My memory is of somebody taking me by the hand.... I can remember the sound of the cassock that they wear whenever they are walking, I remember the swishing that it makes.... They would have been big and strong, maybe like a father figure.... He took me into a room where the curtains were pulled, there was a light shining through the curtain.... The name of the person, I wouldn’t have a clue.

In one instance a witness reported being raped and inappropriately fondled by an unidentified male wearing a white coat. Another male witness reported being inappropriately fondled and subject to inappropriate attention including sexually explicit talk by a female nurse.

Four (4) other witnesses, two male and two female, reported being fondled and/or anally penetrated with objects by unnamed older co-patients, both male and female.

Two (2) female witnesses reported being subjected to internal examinations by female lay and religious staff when they were found talking or interacting with male co-patients. One witness reported that she was restrained by two nuns while another nun conducted a painful internal examination on her for reasons that were not explained to her at the time. The second witness reported being abused in the same manner on three separate occasions by female lay staff. A third female witness reported being fondled, internally examined and digitally penetrated by an unnamed medical doctor while she was in hospital for treatment of a viral illness.

Neglect

Failure to care for 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.5 The following section refers to the evidence of neglect provided by witnesses to the Committee including neglect of their education, inadequate provision of food, poor hygiene and poor supervision. A further aspect of neglect reported by witnesses was the placement of children and juveniles in treatment facilities for adults, including a psychiatric hospital, without provision for their developmental and educational needs.

Seventeen (17) witnesses made 19 reports of neglect. One witness made reports of neglect in relation to three hospitals. The reports related to nine hospital facilities, as follows: Four (4) hospital facilities were each the subject of two to four reports, totalling 14 reports. Five (5) hospital facilities were each the subject of single reports.

Nine (9) witnesses reported being physically and sexually abused in the absence of adequate supervision, for example being a child left in a ward of adult patients and being left unobserved and unsupervised in hospital rooms and cubicles. One witness was sent out to work for local farmers as a day labourer from the county home where he was placed as a young child. He reported being both physically abused and neglected in these work placements where nobody ever called to check on his welfare.

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.