§ Miss Jo Richardson (Barking)I beg to present a petition, signed by a large number of my constituents and others:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
The humble petition from we the undersigned sheweth:
Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that this honourable House will bring about reforms in the laws governing the mental health field to restore human rights to psychiatric patients.
- 1. That Electro-Convulsive Treatment (ECT) is experimental and poses substantial dangers to patients receiving it.
- 2. That Holland has recently put a total ban on this form of treatment.
- 3. That California, Florida, Connecticut, Missouri, Ontario (Canada) and Lower Saxony (Germany) have put severe restrictions on the use of ECT.
- 4. That documents obtained under the American Freedom of Information Act prove that psychiatrists have had the knowledge that ECT is harmful since 1951.
- 5. That this knowledge has been actively suppressed and denied. As a result ECT is one of the most prevalent treatments in British Institutions today.
- 6. That the harmful side effects commonly known to the profession range from a long-term memory loss and migraine headaches to epilepsy and even death.
- 7. That the Royal College of Psychiatists' investigation into ECT, in the light of their refusal to accept evidence presented to them, is biased and a waste of £55,000 of public funds.
- 8. That new legislation to safeguard mental patients' rights should be introduced by the new Government as soon as possible.
- 9. That such legislation must grant patients the absolute right to refuse ECT together with other controversial and hazardous treatments, after a full explanation of the nature of the treatment, its hazards and side effects have been explained.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
§ To lie upon the Table.