Patient may sue psychiatrists

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 7

Patient may sue psychiatrists

NZPA staff correspondent London Britain’s Court of Appeal has decided that a woman sent to a mental hospital for a year can sue the psychiatrists involved in her case. Mary Winch, aged 64, had appealed against a 1984 High Court decision that she did not have a case against the doctors. The appeal was the first since a law giving doctors added protection against harassment through litigation by mental patients was passed in 1983, the “Guardian” newspaper reported. The Master of the Rolls, Sir John Donaldson, said the law was intended to stop frivolous actions and should not be used to deprive complainants of their rights. The two judges sitting with him agreed. Ms Winch was given leave to take action against two remand centre psychiatrists who diagnosed her as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, against a

doctor at the hospital where she was later detained under the Mental Health Act, and against the Home Office for having her committed. She was sent to the remand centre for contempt of court in 1978 after refusing to hand over deeds of her mother’s house. Her mother had died in 1972. A dispute arose over her estate.

Paranoid schizophrenia was diagnosed because of Ms Winch’s belief that her solicitors had conspired to stifle her complaints.

The Master of the Rolls said that if all dissatisfied clients who thought their solicitors had conspired against them were committed, “mental hospitals would be more than overfull.”