Under the Optional Protocol of the
United Nations Committee on the Rights of People with disabilities (CRPD) Garth
Daniels should never have been subjected to electroshock against his will.
Finally, Garth is getting the International intervention needed to stop this brutal attack
on his life.
Australia is a signature to the UN
CRPD Optional Protocol and has ratified this. Under article 4 on which the UN
is intervening in the brutal EST on Garth Daniels.
1.
At any time after the receipt of a communication and before a determination on
the merits has been reached, the Committee may transmit to the State Party
concerned for its urgent consideration a request that the State Party take such
interim measures as may be necessary to avoid possible irreparable damage to
the victim or victims of the alleged violation.
This intervention has occurred
after 20 years of forced psychiatric treatments and commitments, for Garth
Daniels, as well as 5700 other Victorians every year, that refuse psychiatric
treatments and are then said to not be able to give Informed Consent.
Garth’s father, Mr Bernard Daniels
has been supporting Garth in human rights under UN CRPD law, for all those
twenty years his rights have been denied. Many rights, and most obviously
article 15:
No one shall be subjected to torture or to
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one
shall be subjected without his or her free consent to medical or scientific
experimentation.
Psychiatrists have declared that
Garth Daniels cannot give informed consent, because anyone who disagrees with a
psychiatric treatment regime is said to lack insight into their illness and
thereby said not to be able to give Informed Consent.
Through a habeas corpus writ Garth
was able to appear in court, despite Upton House psychiatrics declaring he was
too ill to have visitors.
Bernard Daniels made a plea for his
son to speak, to prove his ability to communicate and thus give informed
consent:
HIS
HONOUR: How long does your son require to speak? We're
pressed for time.
MR
B DANIELS: Two minutes, Your Honour.
HIS
HONOUR: Two minutes?
MR
B DANIELS: Two minutes.
HIS
HONOUR: Yes, very well, Mr Daniels.
MR
G DANIELS: Thank you, sir. Sir, I have had no freedom of consent guaranteed me.
I have been shocked sometimes and it is my wish and will that I be discharged
to undertake alternative treatment. I have had all leave from the hospital
cancelled and my family and friends are not allowed to visit me in hospital.
Only my mum and my brother. My dad, I told him to act on my behalf. My dad is
the person I nominated to speak to the doctors about my treatment. My dad is my
medical Power of Attorney, but the doctors won't allow him into the hospital to
speak with me. I love my mum and my dad and my brother and only managed to hug
my dad after months just two days ago in court. I want to be with my family.
‘I
am imprisoned against my wishes and spend 24 hours in a locked ward. The power
points in my room don't work so I can't play my radio or charge my phone. Most
of my time I spend reading my photography books, and after court the other day
the nurse wanted to take away my mobile phone so my dad could not phone me and
interfere, the nurse said. I told my brother and he passed that message to our
dad who said they can't restrict my communication simply because I want to
speak to my dad. My phone has been taken away from me. I was encouraged by one
of the psychiatrists, Dr Sarah Mackay, to enrol in my photography course which
I waited for a whole year to enrol. This was at Holmesglen College of TAFE near
our house. I was one of 20 people to be accepted into the photography course
and then my treating psychiatrist cancelled my leave after I attended just one
class and got back late from leave. They gave me shock treatment against my
wishes. I told the doctors and the nurses I do not consent and that I'm under
duress, which means I'm being forced to have ECT, the shocks.
‘Once
I got leave and went to the police station to tell them I am being shocked
against my consent and my wishes, the police told me to fill in a form and keep
it. It's a statement signed by me in the police station at Box Hill. I have got
those forms with me today, sir, and I can show it to you. Now the doctors keep
harassing me to change my medication when I'm happy with the current medication
that I'm taking. They tell me I have a mental illness and I must take
medication, which I accept. I'm happy with my medication which has no bad
effects on me and I am stable, but the doctors keep harassing me to take other
medication. My current medication keeps me well, as the nurses keep saying I'm doing
well, but the doctors still tell me it's the shock treatment keeping me well.
But I don't like shock treatment because it is affecting my memory and the
doctors won't tell me when the shocks are going to stop. The nurses tell me
I've had more than 60 shocks. I just don't know how many, but my head hurts and
my teeth ache, and the shocks still continue even when I say I'm under duress
and don't consent to ECT.
‘My
memory is getting very bad and I seem to forget things. I am now fearful in
hospital and intimidated because, if the nurses just think I did something wrong,
they call police who demand I get in my bed, then the nurses strap me in a
four-point restraint because they say I am aggressive. I am not aggressive and
I am well now, but they still tie me up whenever they think I look or act
aggressively, which I do not. My brother tells me that at one stage I spent
more than 60 days strapped to a bed because they said I was violent. Was I violent
is a difficult question to answer as I don't know what they mean by being
violent as my memory is not so good anymore because of the shocks, I know it. I
hate that the doctors don't accept that I can't explain the procedure about
ECT, how they put paste on the side of one's head, then they put a needle in
your arm and put patches on your chest which monitors your heart. Then they
give you an anaesthetic to make you unconscious and shock you. I don't know how
it is supposed to work because all it does is keeps on making my memory bad
which must mean it's affecting my brain because I'm beginning to forget things
sometimes, much more than before, and I'm only 40 years young.
‘I'm
not allowed out of hospital, I'm not allowed to go home, I have no leave, I
can't have lunch with my dad and I don't know when they're going to stop
shocking me. I'm scared they're going to shock me to death. I have a private
psychiatrist who is happy to treat me and I was told that Dr Katz was going to
allow me to go to Queensland, but instead on Monday I got electric shocks. I don't
want any more and just want to be discharged to my private psychiatrist in
Queensland. My parents are preparing to move to Queensland and this is good as
my private psychiatrist, Dr Jock McLaren, came to see me in hospital. Dr Jock
promised me he would take over my care when I get to Queensland. I just want to
go home and not be shocked any more and to go to Queensland with my parents so
that Dr Jock McLaren can be my psychiatrist. Please, I want to be discharged
with no more shocks. I fear the shocks will kill me. Thank you, sir.’
The Supreme Court allowed Upton
House to continue to force electroshock on Garth Daniels since March 22nd
2016 and the Daniels family had to pay court costs. A total 90 electroshocks on
Garth against his will, he has been battered with. And threats of more, despite
two independent psychiatrists agreeing
with Garth that further electroshock will not be therapeutic for Garth and that
it is feared that it might kill him.
Despairing of how-to free stop
Garth from being killed the family and advocates appealed to the United Nations
on the 29th March.
The United Nations, have been
meeting to look at Absolute Prohibition of forced treatment and commitment.
The UN intervened on 2nd
April, on behalf of Garth Daniels, demanding a halt to any further forced
medicine on Garth Daniels. This sets a precedent for all Australians being
abused by psychiatry, which amounts to around quarter of the population, many
of whom do not even know they can appeal to the Supreme Court, don’t have the
money to take such action, as well as those who are suffering under psychiatric
forced treatments and are not aware of their rights.
No person, not even a criminal, should be subjected to torture, that’s clear – most people in the street if asked
would know that. Yet Garth, an innocent man, has been subjected to forced treatment and commitment. Forced treatments, such as drugs and electroshock fall under
the definition of torture, as do psychiatric mechanical holds. When a person
has never been charged with a crime, and the label of ‘disability’ allows
psychiatrists to torture a person, this is terrible. Medicine is meant to
enable, not disable.
While hope for Garth’s recovery of
memory will be there for his family, it may be that much of his former
abilities may not ever be what it could’ve been. Tragedy of losing ability,
happens – but when it is a government approved hospital run by doctors who are
supposed to do no harm, and yet actively and willingly commit harm against a
person’s wishes, that’s incredibly wrong. And, it is against International Law
Australia has signed and ratified.
The Australian Medical Association,
really has to ask itself if affiliating with psychiatric abuse is what their
organisation can continue to do, without needing to compensate victims of psychiatry. Now, that we have a
precedent Intervention & investigation to stop forced treatment, it is time for the AMA to step in and say no more to forced
psychiatric treatments and commitments.
Why are psychiatrists given more power than an elected Minister?
An elected minister cannot lock you up and torture you, a psychiatrist can. Who gave them this power?
