PROFESSOR GRAHAM BURROWS PSYCHIATRY

June 23, 2006

PROFESSOR GRAHAM BURROWS PSYCHIATRY and how it feels for GARTH's

MOTHER, MARILYN -

" A distraught Marilyn s has not been allowed to visit her son

for eight weeks.

He is doomed to a lonely death

She may never be able to hold her son again.

Behind the $360 million development to transform the Austin Hospital

into 's premier showpiece, behind the glitter and sparkle of

this achievement, lays the drab and crumbling mental health wing of

the hospital. Trapped within it's, incarcerated in a locked room,

sits the torpid reminder of Garth s; isolated from his family

and friends, fed a constant cocktail of mind numbing drugs. He is a

prisoner of the n mental health system and there he is

likely to remain until he dies despite desperate pleas from his

mother, frantic and expensive legal action from his father and wails

of protest from his concerned brother and friends, he sits alone,

not knowing how much longer he will survive. Everyday he is

needlessly pumped with more and more drugs.

Garth s is 30 years old and his mind is deteriorating after

being subjected to a ceaseless round of drugs for the past ten

years. There is nothing wrong with Garth except being trapped in a

system that refuses to listen. He is on death row and nobody knows

he even exists and when he dies only his family will be left

grieved.

How does this happen in 2006?

Even the most vile rapist or murderer in a western, democratic and

supposedly fair society is afforded legal representation, is

publicly tried in front of their peers and sentenced according to

the severity of their crime. They are also allowed visitors. Many do

not agree with the actions or political beliefs of Hicks, but

even an alleged terrorist has sympathy with the shabby judicial

treatment he has received at the hands of the US military. Bundled

off to the judicial wasteland of Guantanamo Bay with of no charge,

no trial, no visitors and all civil rights stripped; what ever

Hicks is suspected of, he has a right to a speedy trial

Garth s is living an existence that has even less rights than

Hicks, his family for the most part has been denied visitation

and without even a crime committed he is incarcerated behind the

dirty barred windows, fed drugs that would send anyone insane and is

now hopelessly alone. His family cannot protect him, doctors refuse

to listen to him or his family's concerns and if something is not

done shortly, the n health department, the Austin hospital

and particularly Professor Burrows will have Garth s death on

their hands.

And for what reason?

Mental illness has always made people nervous. People don't like

discussing it and find it easier not to really know how " mad " people

are treated. Out of sight, out of mind suddenly becomes out of mind,

out of sight. But once out of sight due to the professional

decisions of a doctor, the patients do lose liberties and dignity.

And those loss of liberties in 2006 need to be closely examined,

because if they are not carefully scrutinized, Garth s and

those sharing a similar fate may needless die from what will amount

to a state enforced drug overdose that is being systematically

administered several times daily. He has become a pharmaceutical

dumping ground and no one knows or cares except his family whose

shouts are not heard over a bureaucratic stone wall and professional

arrogance.

There was a time when drilling holes into the noggins of the strange

and deranged was considered state of the art psychiatric practices.

So to electro shock treatment and sleep treatment: Never mind the

patient was dead or as good as by the time the doctors had finished.

It is without a doubt that the use of drugs and heavy medications

has been a corner stone of treating the mentally ill over the last

50 years.

So how did Garth s come to be a prisoner in the Austin

Hospital's Mental Health Wing? Is he the subject of a clinical study

against his knowledge and want? Is there a study currently being

carried out by the Austin Hospital, funded by a grant from Lilly

Endowment, the very company who manufactures `Zyprexa-Olanzapine'?

Are Garth s civil liberties being trampled and is he being

subjected to massive overdoses of a drug that has already attracted

class actions in both the US and Canada; forcing Elli Lilly to

compensate victims of `Zyprexa' to the tune of $ 700 million? What

responsibility does the Austin Hospital, Melbourne University and

the n Government take in how research is conducted and is

there any hint of these institutions turning a blind eye to some

dubious research practices if it meant offending Lilly Endowment,

the world's second largest endowment fund behind Bill & Melinda

Gates' philanthropic behemoth and possibly jeopardising further

medical research funding?

In 1996, Garth s, in politically correct terms, had an

episode. In everybody else's terms he went off his rocker. What

should have been a short term rehabilitation has seen him descend

into a pharmaceutical cesspool combined in a bureaucratic, medical

and legal stranglehold that has resulted in his deteriorating mental

condition.

It is often said that only a fool will do the same thing and expect

a different result.

Garth s has been subjected to very high doses of Zyprexa for

ten years. He is currently on 60 mgs that is too high even by Elli

Lilly's own recommended dosage and that of the American FDA. It

results in him looking okay for a few days only to then effectively

having a mental meltdown that requires him to be hospitalised again.

There he receives more of the same drug against his and his family's

wishes. This started in Maroondah Hospital, and via the Dandenong

Hospital now sees him transferred from an outpatient status to

becoming an involuntary patient at the Austin Hospital. What

involuntary patient means in real terms is, dragged off to the

nuthouse. But is he mad or simply the unfortunate result of being

constantly administered a very dangerous drug at too high a level.

Zyprexa is used extensively throughout the world in treating

schizophrenia, manic depression and bipolar disorders. Zyprexa

constituted a whopping 30 plus percent of Elli Lilly's revenue in

2004 with global sales in excess of $4 billion: Greater even than

its more stellar and better known drug, Prozac- which has also

attracted millions of dollars in payouts since hitting the market in

1988. This is despite Zyprexa being under stiff competition from

competing pharmaceutical companies, fending off patent claims and

subject to successful US and Canadian class actions for not putting

warnings on the bottle that Zyprexa can give you diabetes. There

appears to be evidence that Zyprexa can also make one prone to heart

attacks, tumours, agitation, chronic constipation, and a myriad of

other undesirable side affects- none of which are being explained to

Garth s who is currently being fed the drug in above

recommended levels with as much choice in the matter as a battery

hen.

Garth is just one of at least 16 million known users of Zyprexa in

84 countries. A bottle of 30 x 5mg tablets costs around $200. He has

two bottles per week. Despite Elli Lilly paying out nearly $700

million in a US based class action for not putting warnings that

Zyprexa can cause diabetes, Garth is forced this drug still with no

warnings either on the bottle or by the medical staff who inflict

this treatment upon him.

Amnesty International on their web site has a headline-

" Guantánamo Bay - a human rights scandal " then goes on to describe

why- " The unlawful detention of " enemy combatants " at the US Naval

Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba has now entered its fifth year.

Hundreds of people of around 35 different nationalities remain held

in effect in a legal black hole, many without access to any court,

legal counsel or family visits. Many of these detainees allege they

have been subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading

treatment. In desperation, some detainees have attempted suicide. "

The fact this is no so far removed from Garth s who is not

even a criminal or terrorist suspect. He has had no trial, is

allowed no visitors, is allowed no legal representation, is fed a

drug against his and his parent's wishes, a drug that has a dubious

track record, a drug that is attracting class actions, and he has no

rights. No right of recourse, no right to question treatment, no

right to see his family who have been banned by the hospital because

of their questioning of treatment, no right to ask if he is in fact

part of a clandestine medical study and no right to seek an

alternative medical opinion unless that person is attached to a

n hospital and no right to simply go home.

If there is a hell- Garth s is in a living, torpid one moment,

highly agitated the next, lonely and very isolated hell.

In the meantime his mother continues sobbing and fretting for her

lost son as a hospital appointed security guard forcibly removes

Marilyn and Bernard s away or calls the police.

The s know it is only a matter of time before they receive a

phone call from the hospital that their son has had a heart attack,

committed suicide or simply given up. The hospital in not talking to

the s at present except to say they have no right to interfere

with his treatment, no right to see him and no right to a second

opinion. Despite writing to Dr n , CEO of the Austin

Hospital, voicing verbal and written complaints to Professor Burrows

(in charge Mental Health Services at the Austin) and Dr. Bosanac (in

charge of the treatment of Garth), this poor man is still isolated

from all that he knows and loves.

This nightmare descends upon a family who left South Africa,

nauseated by the apartheid policies that stole people, incarcerated

the innocent and held without charge and murdered without trial. Yet

in a nation that flies its democracy as a flag of honour, this a

particular nasty stain that could easily tarnish the reputations of

the Austin Hospital, Government and Elli Lilly in areas of

civil rights, medical procedure and how we deal with the mentally

ill and the rights we deny them.

None of the parties involved wish Garth s to become a cause

celebre. Certainly not the Austin Hospital, Elli Lilly or the

doctors and administrators involved. And certainly not the s

who simply want their son safe. Yet this case drives at the heart of

who we are and how we deal with what is wrong.

All Marilyn s wants is to hold her son in her arms. There

should not be a democracy on the face of this earth that denies a

loving mother that right. It should be our collective shame that it

is 's democracy, of all places that denies Garth s and

his distressed parents these fundamental and inalienable rights of

freedom.

Then in what seems like a coup de grace of injustice, bullying and

professional arrogance, not happy with simply distressing this

family by placing an arbitrary ban on Marilyn and Bernard s,

Dr Bosanac, now seeks to make Garth s more isolated by

altering his legal status to that of a ward of the state of

as Austin Health apply for guardianship through VCAT (n

Civil and Administrative Tribunal). Echoes of the " Lost Children "

with half-cast children being abducted and mother and child never

seeing each other again, seem alive and well in : This is

wrong and no mitigation, justification, medical chicanery, legal

sophistry or professional opinion would ever make this story correct

in a modern democracy that values its sense of fair play. There is

nothing fair in what Professor Burrows is doing to Garth s or

his parents, brother and friends who have been made powerless at the

stroke of his pen. "

June 23, 2006