Abuse inquiry to shine spotlight on the horrors of Lake Alice child and adolescent unit

Sunday, 13 June 2021

The now demolished Lake Alice Psychiatric hospital, where there was a child and adolescent unit in 2009.

A child and adolescent unit at a notorious Manawatū institution is to be the focus of a two-week hearing looking at abuse in state-run psychiatric care.

The Royal Commission's Abuse in Care Inquiry is investigating what happened at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit, which operated from 1972 until 1978, near Marton.

Former patients described horrific conditions, mistreatment and abuse during their time in the facility, including use of electroconvulsive therapy and seclusion rooms as punishment.

Survivors of abuse, their family, staff members, experts and institutional witnesses will speak in two-weeks of public hearings starting on Monday.

An abandoned building at the Lake Alice Psychiatric hospital in 2009 before it was demolished.

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Lead investigation counsel Andrew Molloy said the public hearings were a snapshot of the entire inquiry, where about 300 people had been identified as patients.

The present day view of where Lake Alice psychiatric hospital and its child and adolescent unit was located.

Molloy said there were no records of patients, or those records could not be found, so it was unknown how many people filtered through the unit.

Lake Alice was a psychiatric hospital for adults, but the adolescent unit mostly housed children from 10 to 16 years old.

It was originally thought that there were about 200 young people and children treated at the hospital, but that number had risen as the inquiry continued.

Molloy said part of the task had been to locate and talk to as many people involved in the institution as possible.

Several dozen people had come forward and about 19 survivors would speak at the hearing.

“We are trying to give a voice to those who haven’t been able to have one,” Molloy said.

The inquiry would touch on what happened to children and young people at the unit, and why it happened.

It would also investigate what the Government, police and professional bodies did to prevent and respond to abuse of children and adolescents in the unit.

Molloy said people would talk about what happened to them under the guise of treatment and their lives since.

Family of people who had died , but were in the facility as children, would talk about their experiences of having their parent or family member admitted into the unit.

Some of those people had never spoken publicly before, he said.

The goal was to make sure it never happened again, but it was also important for the survivors to address the public and talk about what happened to them.

The hearing was open to the public, and would be livestreamed online.