Health Department Rejected
Media Release October 17, 2017
Mental health consumers have won another battle against the use of forced medication. After years of being subject to Community Treatment Orders (CTO), 71 year old Kerry O’Malley today won agreement from the Mental Health Review Tribunal to reject the CTO against her. A forced injection is the antithesis of health care disgracing all who say nothing.
This afternoon Kerry said “There were a number of prayer requests that went up from my friends but I still needed all of you to get Victory. I am very grateful”. Meet her here.
Kerry is one of fifteen thousand people in NSW currently having medication enforced under a CTO, being brutalised and degraded by the Health system, using medication that is uncertain and statistically worse than social support. By stigmatising, monitoring and distressing people under such orders, their use deters the mentally ill from receiving voluntary help and bypasses their engagement.
Kerry told the Tribunal that she’d told the hospital that their medication made her feel sick, depressed, anxious, tired, mentally foggy and unable to concentrate, but the hospital disagreed and said that she could get out of bed, was leaving her house, and it was good for her. Kerry said that the order degraded her and she preferred to choose her own doctor. She had family, friends and health support she trusted and wanted the Health Department to leave her alone as it made her fearful. The Tribunal agreed.
Kerry told the Tribunal that she wanted to speak openly about her experiences, and said ‘I’m not afraid to use my own name. I have had to deal with this for a long time’. She applied and got permission under s.162 for permission to use her own name. She is part of the Justice Action Team presenting to the Inquiry on Health on October 31 2017.