Madam, – Carl O’Brien, (Home News, December 7th) gave us an account of Mary Maddock’s appalling experience of forced ECT and antipsychotic drugs.
What a resilient and courageous woman! She is keenly aware of the vulnerability of people with psychiatric illness. The validity of her story must be heeded by psychiatrists, GPs, lawyers, our politicians and the rest of us. Congratulations to her and to Mr O’Brien for trying to inform readers of the hidden realities of some psychiatric “treatments”.
We’d like to think this was just in the past, but unfortunately it’s still happening, as Dr Siobhan Barry, psychiatrist, writes (December 14th). I find her attitude quite shocking.
Amnesty International is also trying to improve the situation. – Yours, etc,