New call on Lake Alice

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 14

New call on Lake Alice

PA Dunedin A full commission of inquiry should hear allegations that shock treatment is used as punishment at Lake Alice Hospital, a psychologist, Mr C. C. Jackson, said in Dunedin this week. Mr Jackson, who has ' been identified as the man ( who gave information about shock treatment at Lake Alice to the Labour spokesman on health .'Mr J. L. Hunt), is in Dunedin as the 1977 education research fellow at Otago University. There was doubt that electro-convulsive therapy had always been used therapeutically or selectively at the hospital, said Mr Jackson. As acting district psychologist in Palmerston North from 1972 to 1974, i Mr Jackson said he formed the opinion that children whose conduct had been difficult or unacceptable had been given E.C.T. as an aversive form o f punishment. His allegations were dismissed by the child psychiatrist in charge of the Lake Alice unit, (Dr S. R. More talks President Carter has said that the American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) will confer twice with the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) before mid-September in new efforts to reach a strategic arms limitation agreement. —Washington.

Leeks) as “arrant rubbish.” “The use of such extreme language by Dr Leeks is immoderate and unjustified,” said Mr Jackson. “My observations can be verified by other people working in the unit at the time, or by youngsters subjected to this treatment.” These impressions he had formed were to the best of his knowledge accurate, and he would be willing to convey these and further observations to a third commission of inquiry, he said. “The matter of the alleged use of E.C.T. as a form of discipline is still in dispute,” he said. Staff at Lake Alice may face prosecution if similar allegations are proved correct. An inquiry into the use of E.C.T. at Lake Alice is being held by an Auckland lawyer, Mr Gordon Vail, after a complaint by Dr Oliver Sutherland, of Auckland. Dr Sutherland supplied information to the Health Department on May 11 which indicated that children were given painful electric shocks as a form of punishment. The department’s director-general (Dr R. A. Barker) said prosecution would depend on the results of the investigation.

“Until we have completed the investigation, it is not possible to say what action will be taken,” he said.