PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVOR GROUP MARKS 10 YEARS OF PROTEST.
On Saturday May 13th, psychiatric survivor group MindFreedom Ireland will mark 10 years of protest against the controversial procedure of electroshock with a public demonstration on The Grand Parade, Cork.
Increasingly worldwide, shock recipients are speaking out against the outdated and brain damaging procedure in the face of concerted campaigns by psychiatry to say it is safe and effective.
In the welter of information and misinformation being circulated, certain facts need to be clearly stated.
Firstly, by their own admission doctors do not know how it is supposed to work. Secondly, deliberately provoking a grand mal seizure is at the heart of the procedure. Thirdly, doctors also now admit that permanent memory loss can be the result.
So controversial is the procedure that many psychiatrists themselves refuse to administer it.
Recipients relate how entire segments of their lives have been obliterated with their decision-making capacity severely curtailed. Many say they were not given full knowledge of the adverse side effects before being pressurised into giving their consent.
Under the Mental Health Act 2001 an Advance Directive in which a person states they do not want electroshock is not legally binding.
Typically, a single programme of electroshock can be up to twelve individual ‘treatments’, usually twice a week. The most recent figures available show that over 2,000 ‘treatments’ were administered in Ireland in 2015.
The protest commences at 2pm outside Bishop Lucey park. MindFreedom Ireland campaigns for equal human rights for all and against forced psychiatry. It calls for a total ban on electroshock as is the case in Luxembourg and Slovenia.
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MindFreedom Ireland, Cork.
Ph: 021 4894303. Mob: 087 3893830.