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Patients Council Wins Fight for Equal Rights The Queen Street Patients Council is the FIRST psychiatric survivor group in Canada that had full intervenor status in a court case. This means that the Patients Council had a lawyer, Paul Burstein, who presented evidence and cross-examined witnesses for the Council. By all accounts this was the FIRST successful case under that part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that says we can't be treated differently than other people because of a so-called "mental disability," Section 15(1). Right now, if any one of us commit a crime (no matter how minor), and are considered to be "insane," we can be held FOREVER unless we can prove we are "safe." No one can prove that they will never be dangerous. This is especially difficult if we do not do well in an institution. I may never have been violent, but if I am really pissed off at being locked up, this alone will keep me locked up for having a bad attitude. People convicted of crimes can get out when their time is up. Forensic psychiatric survivors have been the only people in Canada other than Dangerous Offenders who could be held with no end in sight. But even "Dangerous Offenders" had to be proven dangerous in court! Our victory means that if a person is found "Not Criminally Responsible due to a Mental Disorder": 1) Instead of the "burden of proof" being on the person to show that they are safe, the state will have to prove a person dangerous. (This will give us rights equal to other Canadians). Justice Howden struck down that part of the Criminal Code that was unfair to psychiatric survivors, and has given the Canadian Government 6 months to come up with new legislation. It is fair to say that without the Queen Street Patients Council and our outstanding lawyer, Paul Burstein, this law would not have been changed. The judge referred to our evidence and arguments more than to anyone else's. It was our evidence about the inconsistency of the Review Board's ability to predict dangerousness and the too wide a net that was being cast to catch us (I mean the law is too broad) on which the judge based his decision to strike down the law! Dan Brodsky, the lawyer for the applicant, Denis LePage, initiated this case for our Constitutional rights, and Denis and Dan welcomed us aboard. We fought together. Denis has not been freed, but a changed law means that he too will have a fairer hearing. (The Patients Council does not know Denis, so we did not address his situation). We successfully advocated for the rights of all psychiatric survivors in Canada. Now we wait to see if any of the people on the other side will appeal. If they do, we may have to continue our fight all the way up to the Supreme Court. Two Queen Street Staff Charged with Sexual Assault Jeries Qaqish, former head nurse of Unit 1B, was tried and aquitted of sexual assault. Judge Crossland concluded the trial by saying that the acqittal is not a rejection of the evidence given by the complainant-- that although her story may be true, it was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Originally there were two women patient/survivors of Queen Street who testified against Jeries Qaqish. They both testified at the preliminary hearing, but one woman's doctor wrote to the Crown Attorney saying that because of unfortunate events in the woman's life she was no longer up to appearing in court. (We hope this is what the woman wanted.) So Qaqish went to trial accused of raping one patient on July 2, 1993 after driving her home from Q.S.M.H.C. This woman bravely told her story about what happened to her, although she feared that no one would believe her. She did not originally want to make an official complaint, as she was afraid that other staff would turn against her. It was Barbara Break, staff at Unit 1B, who first reported to the College of Nurses what the woman complainant told her about the sexual assault. It was a professional requirement, and it is now a legal requirement that staff must report abuse. She testified respectfully of this woman she knew, responding when questioned that she did not believe that this woman made things up (as the defense implied). Michael Leshner was the Crown Attorney prosecuting this case.In his closing argument, he insightfully stated that Ms. --- was at risk because she was a psychiatric out-patient. "He raped her because he thought he could get away with it," Leshner said. He observed that she has not benefitted from this case, and has in fact endured considerable trauma. He noted that the problems with the charts from Queen Street made things difficult-- things were missing and recorded out of order. The defense described the complainant as a "manipulative seeker of sympathy," and referred to her having a "criminal record." This is in reference to charge for which she was not even tried, let alone convicted. Michael Leshner informs us that the woman involved said she was glad that she had gone through with the charges, despite how it turned out. We commend her for her courage, and offer our support at the Patients Council Office if she should need it. Investigation of this case is still ongoing at the College of Nurses. On May 15th, another Queen Street staff will be tried for sexual assault. He was a security guard, and his name is Bob Foster. Would anyone with any information about this case please contact our office. Survival (by C.M.P.) I never got to Boston. When I was a kid, the adults in my life really hurt me. When I would get scared, I always wanted to get away. There was no escape. When I was a teenager, the trips to the institutions started. The adults in those places really hurt me. I was tied up, locked up, and drugged up. I always wanted to get away. There was no escape. By the time I was 21, I had already been in five different institutions. I had been forcibly confined, attacked by staff, been put in cold packs and full body restraints, been put on behaviour modification programs that punished me with things like starvation and not being allowed to bathe or go to the bathroom, and I had been on every major and minor tranquilizer known to man, I think. My whole life, I've never been free. Today, thanks to the adults I've had in my life, my memories are my locks and my fears and my jailors. As an adult, the adults in my life really hurt me. I'm scared all the time now. At age 33, I've been incarcerated in twelve different institutions for being too sensitive. My only crime has been against myself. I cut and burn my body in an attempt to deal with emotions that I've never been taught to deal with. As an abuse survivor, I learned very quickly as a child that the only way to survive was to remain silent. The silence almost killed me so when I was 13 I began carving up my body as a way of giving voice to the pain. When I was in places like Queen Street I discovered that being in crisis interrupted a lot of staff's knitting, crocheting and reading. They were very punitive and really pissed off every time they had to actually deal with me. It's a bit scary to think these same people are looking to hold on to their high paying, cushy jobs by becoming community workers as dictated in the "Putting People First" report. At 33, I am a victim of the institutions and I no longer remain silent about the adults I've had in my life. I survived the psychiatric system. Barely. I did things to hold onto my sanity like count the holes in the ceiling tiles in solitary confinement. I smiled politely and said, "Fuck you." But most of all, I survived any way I could. Today I call myself a survivor. I have earned that right. I have the scars to prove it. And on days when the pain gets too intense, I add to my scars. I haven't been in an institution for 4 years. I am on low doses of drugs, on the way to gradually withdrawing from them completely. I am in therapy with a loving and non-judgemental feminist therapist, and I work part time. Before I die, I'm going to visit Boston and before I give up, I'm going to remember that in all things, at all times, I have survived. A Simple Message (O. G.) What is a schizophrenic? What is a manic depressive? What is a paranoiac? What is a psychopath? We are all people trying to do good, trying to do bad (which we shouldn't) but who is sane? There's only a fine line of a difference between sanity and insanity, and who are we to judge as so called "sane people"? God made us all equal. As God made us equal, but life is not a
bowl of cherries. As sweet as cherries are, we have sour grapes
as well. So it is up to us sane people to help the so-called insane. To help them financially and any which way. Because the population of the mental institutions in North America has been increasing tenfold in the last 20 years. Poem (Anonymous) Remember to tip tic tack dough $ The Story of a "Crazy" (A. S.) Someone once told me he'd commit suicide if I didn't come back to him. I lost a lot of sleep over that, and when I woke to the sound of a siren going down the country road towards his house, I snapped, and thought he'd done it. I got into my car and didn't know whether to go to the suicide scene or go to see his mother. I pulled off the road onto a wide driveway to think. An pair of natives drove up and parked beside me and gave me dirty looks (I was probably on their property). I thought, these may be friends of the man who committed suicide, so I tore out of there thinking they might want to get even with me for `causing the suicide'. The police pulled me over when I was going over the speed limit. I told them I thought the natives were chasing me. I was slapped with the label 'schizophrenic'. I didn't believe them, and stopped taking the medicine, but I kept the bottles. (There was no suicide.) A year later, someone was harassing me, saying he'd turn gay if I didn't have sex with him. I lost sleep over that, and thought if I took one of those pills it would relax me. It made me feel like I was dying, so I called my mother to say goodbye. She thought I was attempting suicide, so she had me taken to hospital and there I was kept confined for four months on drugs that made me withdrawn and miserable, with side effects that made me feel like it would be very hard to make friends. My tongue was so thick I couldn't talk and my face contorted into grimaces and drools that I couldn't control. I was now labelled `suicidal schizophrenic'. I didn't believe them and stopped taking the drugs. A couple years later, my boyfriend and I got a new phone with the number `666' in it. I called him at work and said, "This is the devil's number. What can we do? I can't stand it." My boyfriend had me hospitalized for that, and they continued the label schizophrenic. Once I was labelled mentally ill, my friends and family often had me committed if I started being overtly enthusiastic about a `cause' or overly outgoing, or in some way a bit bizarre, instead of my usual quiet, shy self. They took my `off' behaviour as a sign that I was about to become ill, and thought I must be committed before things got out of hand. Some of these times I agree I was ill, but others I feel that my personal freedom was being violated. On the other hand, if it weren't for family and friends, and a few police, I'd be possibly wandering the streets, ill and homeless. About six years after my first hospitalization, I spoke with a doctor who asked me what happened before each hospitalization. That was new to me. Before, I hadn't been consulted in the matter. My comments were not wanted or considered valid. The new doctor then suggested I might be `manic depressive'. Strong reactions to things may be considered mood swings. I was put on lithium, to control manic depression. Once I was on lithium I didn't have bad side effects and I stayed out of hospital longer. However, my kidneys are now too damaged to allow taking lithium anymore, so I am on Tegretol. I can take it regularly without having to worry about the effect of taking it without food. Before, on lithium, I'd often miss a dosage because of food shortage. Sometimes I'd take lithium with just a little food, so I got damaged kidneys. Recently I asked a doctor to review my files and she said indeed it appears I am manic depressive rather than schizophrenic, as I had been labelled for about six years. The "Quiet Room" or "Hole" (Geoffrey Reaume) "Let me out of here!!! Let me out of here!!!" This plea, along with the noise of fists banging on the door and walls, was one of the first sounds I heard upon arriving at the new ward at St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital in early 1979, after eight days of admitting. The person who was calling for freedom, as I found out later, was "Marcia," a woman in her thirties. She was locked in a small, bare, concrete room for two weeks because she had run away. Isolation cells measured roughly eight feet by ten feet. There
was a tiny window in the door and a larger one on the outside wall,
with thick glass and wire screen. Cells were used to restrain people
whom the staff considered "disruptive." Meals were brought to these
inmates who had to ask a staff member to use the washroom. Staff
would then accompany a patient and literally stand in the doorway
of the toilet stall, or behind the urinal, while an individual relieved
themself. Inmates were often, though not always, forced to wear pyjamas while isolated. Other patients were told to have no contact whatsoever with people confined in these cells, which were off the main corridor. Anyone who violated this rule was punished, usually with loss of ground privileges. Staff called these cells the "Quiet Room". Inmates referred to them as the "Hole". Mrs. Northy (by 'Mary Ann') I was fourteen when I was at Whitby. That's where I met Mrs. Northy, a nurse. She wore glasses and had short hair. She wore a uniform and a watch. She was very strict. Mrs. Northy watched me to see that I got my hair combed. She saw that we would lay down on the bed in the ward. She would come around the table watched to make sure we'd eat. If we went outside she'd tell us we'd get the strap. Mr. Clem (by R.) Mr. Clem is my nurse. He treats me good. I will never forget him. I never see another nurse be so kind to me. Mr. Clem treats me the best all the time. He took me to see the movie "Bodyguard." We went out to eat afterwards and he paid for me. I really appreciated it. The Other Side (lyrics © Stuart Mair) She lives in a penthouse away from the world The way you live, baby, just might be the way that you die. He's a politician on top of the world We live in a world that's out of control If you want to keep it you've got to learn to let go We were born to live, we were born to die The way you live, baby, just might be the way you that you die Once Upon A Time... They put an asylum on the Island, faraway from the market place. They left twenty people there. Once a month the market people would get into a ship and bring the Islanders a little food and some clothes, but they were left alone the rest of the time. After a while the ship came less often and then stopped coming altogether. The Islanders got very lonely and some of them started to cry terribly loud. But the Island was too far away for the cries to be heard. And when it seemed that everything was lost, a huge bird with gold wings came home to the Island and set on the mountain top. The bird looked very strange. It seemed to shine like the moon. "What are you villagers doing here?" asked the great bird. So the Islanders decided to plant some seeds and they became good at harvesting and hunting with spears. The Island started to prosper after a few years, and the crying stopped. And after a long time without any visitors, a gentleman doctor came to the Island on a big ship. He saw that the Islanders had grown their own food and asked them how this was possible. They told him to mind his own business as there was a market place where he came from. The doctor said that they were very sick and he must leave because of another appointment on another island. The Islanders laughed and told him not to come back. So they lived there peaceably with the great bird who sheltered them from time to time.
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