1,021 given brain damaging ECT

antrim | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Thursday December 18, 2003 19:32 by sean fleming

The practice of so-called electro convulsive therapy must stop. 1,021 in the republic have received this brain damaging 'treatment' in 2002.

The recent report by the Inspector of Mental Hospitals in the Republic for 2002 makes disturbing reading in one respect in particular- 1,021 psychiatric patients have been ‘treated’ with so-called Electro- Convulsive Therapy (ECT). How passing an electrical current through someone’s brain can in any way be described as therapeutic or helpful in treating the symptoms of ‘mental illness’ is anyone’s guess. It is time this inhuman and demeaning ‘treatment’ was ended. It does not work and is known to cause brain damage. It is mind disabling and debilitating. Psychiatric nurses should take a stand and refuse to be involved in administering ECT. People with ‘mental illness’ need to be treated with dignity and respect and given holistic treatment to help them come to terms with severe mental distress. Psychiatry should stop perpetrating the lie that ECT is helpful and beneficial to people with ‘mental illness’.

http://www.doh.ie/publications/inspect02.html