Strategic Book Marketing Official Blog

TORTURE
Graham Bishop

Torture? (√)
In New Zealand? (√)
Really? (√)
In the health system? (√)
You’re joking (x)

The ‘infliction of severe bodily pain e.g. as punishment or means of persuasion’ spells TORTURE. I had never been tortured before, and here it was happening to me, right here in the quiet university town of Dunedin, New Zealand. My fingers were being bent backwards over my wrist as my other arm was being twisted up behind my back. The pain was extreme, but the anticipation of waiting for my fingers to snap was worse. I have a high pain tolerance, but I couldn’t believe anything could hurt so much. It’s hard to plead for mercy when you have a scream stuck in your throat, but fortunately my body made the decision, and I passed out.

What made the incident even more remarkable was the perpetrators were two healthcare nurses, one male, one female.

The situation came about after I was admitted to hospital in the mistaken belief that I was experiencing a bipolar episode. In fact I was recovering from a stroke which I had suffered a few months before. Nine psychiatrists out of ten got it wrong. Number three got it right, but none of those who came later bothered to check his diagnosis. Once you have a psychiatric label it’s hard to shake, but that’s another story.

I had been a naughty boy (although I was going on 60), and gone AWOL. I had booked into a motel and ate some decent food and drank decent plonk, for the first time in six months. When I was discovered and returned to Wakari I was pleasantly tight, and thought the whole incident was rather funny. In psychobabble, however, I was ‘grossly intoxicated, and a danger to myself and others.’ So I was being transferred from one ward to a more secure part of the system, in case I embarrassed them again.

I was quite cheerful about this move. There was a distinct lack of privacy in the less secure ward from which I had departed. My possessions frequently went missing. Some turned up being worn by other patients. In Ward 9B patients (clients) were much more respectful of the possessions of other ‘clients’, although the same could not be said for the staff. However I would have a room to myself again and I could put up with having my computer being examined regularly in my absence, and my other property being rummaged from time to time.

I lit a cigarette as we emerged from the lift in the basement below Ward 10 at the start of this transfer, and we set out on the short walk in the open air down to Ward 9B. On one side of the walkway was a rocky bank quite impossible for me to scale, and on the other side was a waist-high netting fence which was equally impregnable. Escape was impossible especially as I had a pronounced limp and couldn’t run. Escape however, was the last thing on my mind. Nevertheless one of the several nurses present, a burly female called Jo-Anne (her real name); decided she would take my crippled arm. She had known me for six months and knew my left arm and left leg were part paralysed, and I couldn’t use my left hand for anything. Having my arm seized both annoyed and hurt me, so I tried to pull away. I almost certainly reminded her in blunt language that she was not very intelligent and I would prefer it if she let go. As I tried to pull away however she retaliated by twisting my arm up behind my back. ‘Partial restraint’ is the euphemism for the situation I now in. I protested loudly and redoubled my efforts to break free.

My struggling and verbal complaints attracted the attention of Peter B. He arrived at such speed I threw up my right hand to protect myself, in the process dropping my cigarette. It was subsequently claimed I threw it at him; which was nonsense designed to show me in the worst possible light. Peter was an athletic young man in his early 20s who showed distinct signs of manic behaviour. He is rather more portly now. He grabbed my right wrist with his left hand, and with his right hand proceeded to bend my fingers backwards as described above. I was now in a position of ‘full restraint’. I couldn’t take much more, but there was no way I could stop him. My fingers were going to snap or dislocate. Time stood still, as I waited for the inevitable crack. What did he want from me? What should I do? There was nothing I could do. In desperation I tried to stamp on his feet or rake his shins with my shoe. It is the first and only time I have ever wilfully tried to hurt anyone.

After I fainted from the pain (’sat down on my bottom’ according to my file), I was picked up bodily by the nurses, and carried into the isolation unit. There I was dumped on a bed and left. It was about 4pm. Nobody asked me how I was, or made any attempt to check if I was injured. I thought it was possible my shoulder was dislocated, and maybe at least one of my fingers also. I tried bathing them under the drinking fountain but the water was only a trickle, so I flushed the toilet a couple of times, knelt in front of it, and thrust my hand into the soothing water in the bowl. First aid in Wakari Hospital called for improvisation. It became clear I wasn’t going to be given any dinner. It may have been punishment, but I think it more likely I had simply been overlooked during the change from the afternoon to the evening shift. It had happened before. There was no way I could complain or communicate with anyone. The video monitor may have registered if I died, but I doubt it. It failed to register a lot of things, like once when a blob of soggy toilet paper covered the lens for twenty minutes. Someone will die in solitary one day, but it will be creatively explained away.

I was in a state of shock, and found it difficult to believe what had happened. I posed no physical threat. In addition to being lightly built, I was also seriously underweight, I think less than 60 kg, and totally non-violent. I was 58 years old. I was known to the staff to be normally polite, cooperative, and considerate, in addition to being badly paralysed. It is hard to imagine a less dangerous monster.

16 hours later I got some breakfast. After that Dr D. arrived. He was a sinister-looking individual, completely dressed in black (Dr Death?).

His examination, almost 20 hours after the incident, was cursory and rough. After shaking my shoulder, he assured me it wasn’t dislocated, and as I could wiggle my fingers, painfully, they were all right too. He made no comment about the swelling and bruising that was developing across the knuckles at the base of my fingers.

Eventually I was released from the isolation cell and allocated a room, life returned to normal, sort of. The extent of the bruising of my knuckles appalled one of my visitors, a registered nurse. When she mentioned it to colleagues, they warned the treatment might result in permanent injury. How right she was. Several of the staff also commented, one remarking that it was a technique that should never have been used. After protesting almost daily for six weeks I finally had my hand x-rayed, by which time both the bruising and swelling had subsided. I don’t think any record of the appearance of my hand it was ever entered on my file, but it was not unusual for incidents reflecting poorly on staff to be overlooked.

It took a judicial decision to get me out of Wakari. Although my general condition improved immediately I was allowed back into my own home, the conditions of my three damaged fingers, on my only working hand, began to deteriorate steadily. It was bad news for a writer as typing eventually became an ordeal. However there is always another way, and voice recognition software proved to the way. Now I can ‘type’ more rapidly and more accurately than ever before. But my injured fingers have became increasingly painful and arthritis has set in, although the digits that escaped the trauma (my thumb and little finger) are still in good shape.

Eventually I made a claim to the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC). It seemed a reasonable claim as the basic elements of the incident were recorded in my file.
I can just imagine their broad-bottomed discomfort. “Oh no! People don’t get tortured in New Zealand. We better get this reviewed by a psychiatrist.”

The psychiatrist was based in Auckland. She had never met me and apparently made her assessment on the basis of my file, which concluded I was suffering from a complaint I didn’t have. My psychiatric condition, however, was immaterial to the state of my fingers. Perhaps she couldn’t accept that people do get tortured in New Zealand either. So I battled on, trying to get some justice for an injury that pains me on average 10 or 12 times an hour, or nearly 2000 times a day, and greatly limits the number of things I can do, like opening tins and changing camera lens, or doing anything with a screwdriver. Using power tools as a bit of a no-no into the bargain, all because some poorly trained goon wanted to show off his sado-macho skills.

Perhaps the worst aspect is my fingers pain me at night and the pain triggers nightmares, which take me right back to the time I was staring into the savage black eyes of Peter B., and feeling the most excruciating pain I have never felt. Peter B. taught me the meaning of violence, and when I wake, in a cold sweat, I have thoughts of even more savage retaliation. The thoughts disturb me, even though I know I will never put them into practice.

That’s just one small part my of legacy from the mental health system. It was a shameful period that needlessly terminated my career, took me to the threshold of suicide, and taught me never to trust a psychiatrist again. At last count I had received six apologies, some acceptable, some not. I have never received any expression of regret, remorse, or apology, for the incident described above.
(1773)

Dr Graham Bishop
22 Erin St
Roslyn
Dunedin 9010
New Zealand