A pseudo-scientific, outdated and brain-damaging procedure.
Every May for the past 13 years, MindFreedom Ireland has held a public protest in Cork in opposition to the practice of electroshock, still carried out in psychiatric ‘hospitals’ in Ireland.
We do so in solidarity with The Stop Shocking our Mothers and Grandmothers campaign organised by The Campaign Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) in Canada and MindFreedom International in the US who selected Mothers Day (celebrated in May in North America) to highlight the fact that worldwide, electroshock is given to twice as many women than men, many of them elderly.
Electroshock involves deliberately inducing a seizure by shocking the brain with an electric current. Even though it is administered under general anaesthetic, the end result is always brain damage, confusion and memory loss, sometimes permanent. While some psychiatrists use it as a last resort, others are strongly opposed to it.
According to the Mental Health Commission, the latest figures for Ireland show that in 2015 electroshock was given to 243 people involving 2173 individual procedures. It is frequently given without fully informed consent and any Advanced Directive made by a person saying they do not want it can, under the Mental Health Act, 2001, be legally overruled.
Unable to have our annual protest this memorable year of 2020, MindFreedom Ireland calls for a permanent lockdown on electroshock.
JIm Maddock,
MindFreedom Ireland.
12th May, 2020.