Appalling report on Victoria’s mental healthcare services

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJan 27 2011

In a new revealing report, a Victorian Government official – from the Office of the Public Advocate (OPA), spoke about the declining level of care and protection provided to those with a mental disability. The OPA report entitled “Violence against People with Cognitive Impairments” analyzed 86 cases of abuse in government-funded and private support facilities over four years and reported mistreatment including instances of physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse - sometimes by carers themselves. The report said police often believe the perpetrator of the abuse, rather than the mentally impaired victim.

Over a third of the cases involve allegations of sexual assault, very few resulted in police intervention. Only one case involved the prosecution and jailing of a perpetrator. Of the cases, over three quarters involved women as victims. In 30 of the 86 cases, the abuse involved allegations of assault levelled against the victim’s carer. The OPA report also revealed that it helped 272 disabled or mentally ill people make allegations of abuse to the police sexual abuse unit last year, which is double the number of cases recorded a decade ago.

The report was welcomed by the Minister for Community Services Mary Wooldridge who said that it highlighted the failure of the previous Labor government over 11 years to deal with violence against Victorians with disabilities. She added, “Instead of Labor’s failed approach, we need a justice system that better supports people with disabilities, services that respond quickly to alleged abuse and a change of approach to ensure services work together.”

The Public Advocate has recommended more training and funding for the community support sector. Public Advocate Colleen Pearce has also urged the Bailleau government to commit to improve the way Victoria’s criminal justice system and the Department of Human Services deals with “shocking” cases of abuse, including sexual assault. She added that many vulnerable victims were falling through gaps in existing support services or ending up in facilities in which they were exposed to harm. “There have been reports on this issue going back to 1988 and it is an indictment on the community that we have not been able to find better ways of dealing with this issue,” she added.

In the past six months, Ms Pearce- who as Public Advocate is appointed by the state government to protect the rights of people with a disability- has received 10 abuse complaints.

People working at these places needed better training, she said. And she said the criminal justice system was often a hostile or unresponsive environment for disabled people looking to make a complaint adding, “I think we need to increase the training provided to police, particularly around making sure that people with cognitive impairments are treated fairly and the evidence is in fact collected.”