An Open Letter to the Long Bay Treating Team

An open letter to Dr. Antonio Simonelli, head of the Justice Health Treating Team for Malcolm Baker

Re: Malcolm Baker Mental Health Review Tribunal Hearing, 30 April 2015

From: Brett Collins

To: Antonio Simonelli

Date: Tuesday, 28 April 2015 19:40 pm

Dear Dr. Simonelli,

Malcolm’s independent psychiatrist, Dr. Yola Lucire, has asked to see treatment and medication sheets in the file. Would you forward them to her to assist her evidence please? She is copied into this email.

Also, we want to clarify some matters before the hearing on April 30 and give you notice of some issues, so you can prepare yourself properly. We have examined the 53 page report you have submitted for the Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) Review.

There is no social worker report or anything about how he functioned at Nowra in the main prison after being in SuperMax at Goulburn for 18 years. Nor has the fact that he has been in contact with his family and friends been included in the report. We talked with him almost every day, as did his family members. He is our friend and I am his primary carer. Why am I not mentioned in your report?

Your report on 26 February 2015 tendered to the Review says at p.2 that Malcolm was discharged on 9 February 2012 from the Long Bay Prison Hospital on a Forensic Community Treatment Order (CTO). You have not mentioned that he returned to your hospital on 18th August 2012 after the CTO expired on 7th August 2012 and that the Tribunal did not renew the CTO at its hearing on 13 September 2012. This was after Malcolm sent a letter imploring the Tribunal to not forcibly medicate him again.

You also failed to mention that he was off medication entirely during the many months before the hearing held on 7 August 2012 and wasn’t again forcibly medicated until this year. You say at p.4 that in January 2014 he was given and accepted reluctantly the medication Olanzapine. What treatment sheets exist supporting that? Malcolm denies taking any such medication. In April and October 2014, you imply that he was taking no medication but do not suggest that he was causing any problems. There is no statement that there was any risk of serious harm to himself or others. The prison did not say so.

After he went to Nowra on October 8 2014, after 18 years in SuperMax, you did not say that he settled into his job working with another 30 prisoners and living with 60 prisoners after being in effective solitary confinement for 18 years. His resettlement was amazingly successful. He did really well. Other prisoners liked him. He made no complaint or request for assistance to health staff. 

You did not include in your report, the Malik report 2 February 2015 that transferred him to your hospital under s 55(3). It says that the initiative for Malcolm’s forcible medication began when health staff at Nowra prison said that he “regularly sends drawings and ideas for inventions to…Clive Palmer.” His letters should have been private and his political interests not medicalised. 

Since that time he has lost his cell and his job at Nowra prison and has been locked in a cell in G Ward at your hospital for 23 hours a day. He has no toothbrush, pen or paper in his cell. He has his face forced into a pillow by prison officers and nurses every two weeks, with his trousers taken down and injected with a substance that makes him feel sick all the time. He lies down, as he cannot walk easily. He is harmed immeasurably by your brutal intervention. He wants just to be left alone. 

Where is the respect? Where is the person-centred approach? Is this upholding the Justice Health motto?

“Our values: Care, Clear Communication, Honesty, Professionalism, Respect.”

Are we misunderstanding something? Is there some information we do not have?

Please pass the Treatment Sheets to Dr. Lucire.

See you on Thursday.

Regards,

Brett Collins