Reading the future changes in the Centre forAddiction and Mental Health CMAH and of calling the mental ill patients "clients". Which I believe is not a great improvement. Still, it brought memories on how the adult autistic became "clients" and "programs" for the group home administration taken away with it their last vestige of humanity.
A small group of parents came up with the idea to form an organization dedicated to protect the autistic from a life of sedation and institutionalization but, once money started to flow, it became a not-for-profit business living off autism, sedating the adult autistic 18/20 hours a day or more and becoming mini-institution.
Slowly, the take over was done when the autistic came to the age of 21 and the government lose the reins. Now they can do and say anything of the adult autistic. The changes came in force 1996, the security of staff salaries were affected, caregivers were let go, parents sided with administration, after all they were short of money. Then, the quality of care went down and the parents voiced their concerns, at some meetings they were angry. At the same time unbeknowst to them, every one of their children got similar diagnosis of mental disorders and in need of Risperdal. Danny was one of them. The mother of one girl that almost died from such medical "treatment" took her home and got the ministry involved which brought on the investigation/audit whose results and recommendations were printed out in 2000, some parents read it but then many were afraid. I remember vividly the first parents meetings to "discuss" the results, none said anything but, surprsingly, administration were making light/ridiculing their concerns,unheard of! Then as the parents became angrier at the lack of quality of care and the presence of a very difficult "client", administration started to deal individually with parents. An ancient strategy to take the power away from the parents is called "divide and conquer". From then on no more "Parents' Meetings" but PCPs, like IEP in the US, supposedto focus in the strengths and weakness of the individuals in order to give him unique solutions for their future, you could have as many PCPs as a parent wanted. PCPs were approved by the government. I saw many PCPs meetings and meant nothing, did nothing, changed nothing, empty paperwork. As some groups joined together to demand from the government to empower the disabled by given them individual funding, agencies fearing losing their position of control and power over those funds joined together, which was announced at the last meeting I went.
Since June of 1999 when Risperdal almost killed Danny we were trying to protect him from all those mental disorders that he didn't have and from the drugs/meds that he didn't need. In February 2001, after one meeting with the new administration Danny's father gave up saying they are never going to listen, you can go to meetings ad nauseum, they are not going to listen. So, I did, I went to hundreds of those meetings and effectively I was never listened to. After some meetings, some were private meetings or phone calls with administration or with representatives of the Ministry, I found, to my surprise, that whatever concerns, thoughts, ideas I communicated to them privately.... were repeated to me by some members of administration and by some caregivers "close" to administration. Clearly, there were no respect, confidenciality or secrecy. Then those new staff hired as "watchers" were openly criticizing the organization as "evil", the country's government treatment of the disabled as "barbaric" and some staff's actions like "trying to break Danny's spirit". Some staff even went to tell me that if Danny were their son they would have taken him home and, after an incident in which Danny had ended with large bruises they would have called the police.
And, each one of those words stayed in my memory and by not reacting I had allowed his torture and torment.
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