Abuse in Care: Institution for disabled people compared to 'concentration camps'
Wednesday, 13 July 2022
People with disabilities experience higher rates of violence than nondisabled people. Disabled people, their whānau and advocates are sharing stories of historical abuse at the Abuse in Care – Royal Commission of Inquiry Disability, Deaf and Mental Health institutional care. The hearing runs from July 11 to July 20.
Content warning: This story contains accounts of abuse which some readers may find distressing.
A clinical psychologist has likened an institution where disabled people lived in the 1970s to World War II “concentration camps” at the Abuse in Care – Royal Commission of Inquiry Disability, Deaf and Mental Health institutional care hearing on Wednesday.
Dr Olive Webb started working at Sunnyside Hospital in Christchurch in 1970 as an assistant clinical psychologist.
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* 'Life-destroying impact': Most people who were abused in care were disabled
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She has an interest in how environments impacted people's behaviour and spent a lot of time with long-term residents.
Webb recalled one villa at Sunnyside that housed around 70 men with learning disabilities.
During bath time, the men were stripped naked and 'herded' into the shower room together and then walked back through the villa, still naked, to get dressed. She said it reminded her of concentration camps, similar to those used during WWII.
After breakfast, the men would be moved into a day room and left there with nothing to do.
'There was a complete removal of thinking, creativity, dignity, and independence,' she said.
If not in the day room, residents would be kept in a seclusion room, with only a mattress and potty, if they were considered “very disturbed” or as punishment.
She didn’t see any explicit physical or sexual abuse, but said it was systemic abuse that took place in the institutions she worked at and was based on the values' system of the day.
Webb could see many of the residents were unable to reach their potential because of the environment they lived in.
She started a work programme, originally with 12 men. They would place stickers on bibs and be paid in tokens which meant they could buy colouring books or lollies at the ward shop. The programme was so successful other residents wanted to join in too.
Another time she started playing music to some residents to get them moving. She remembers the difference it made to one woman who would usually sit still all day with her arms crossed. Within in a few weeks her “lights would come on” to the music, Webb said.
Despite the last institution in New Zealand closing in 2006, Webb said some care homes still function like institutions today.
There are homes with many disabled people living together, being supported and managed by a few people who hold all the power, and everything is kept “terribly secret”, she said.
She called for a move away from a “one size fits all” care model of disabled people, and said that the state needed to listen.
While Webb said she understood that bureaucratic systems were needed to manage funding, but what makes people happy should come first.
“You shouldn’t compromise individual needs for the sake of an efficient model.”
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A mother has also described how her two disabled sons' behaviour and physical conditions declined so badly after living in Templeton Hospital near Christchurch, that one turned into a 'zombie'. She put the behavioural change down to the abuse and neglect they suffered at the hands of the staff.
Alison Adams shared evidence on behalf of her sons Nigel, 61, and Malcolm, 62, who both have learning disabilities.
When her sons saw a specialist at 2 and 3 years old, she was told to forget about her boys and put them into an institution. But she didn't want to send them away so young and she raised them at home.
Eventually, Malcolm started going to Templeton for respite care in late 1977, before moving in full-time in 1978. Nigel moved to Templeton a year later.
Two weeks after Malcolm moved in at Templeton, she went to visit him, only to be told by staff to stay away for six weeks.
In that time Malcolm 'turned into a zombie' because of the medication he was put on, she said.
While living at home, Alison had toilet-trained them, but the brothers lost their ability to go to the bathroom independently while at the institution.
'[Malcolm] couldn't even walk and was lying in his own urine,' she said. 'It was shocking.'
Behavioural changes led her to believe that they were sexually abused as well, she said.
Nigel and Malcolm now live in a Christchurch home that Alison bought for them, but she says the level of care they receive is still not sufficient. She said there needs to be much more support and funding for all disabled people.
'I just want the boys to be happy and I'm reaching the end of my life,' Alison said.
'Nigel and Malcolm still give back a lot,' she said. 'They're the reason I'm still alive today.'
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