History of Prejudice at OPSEU?
filed in Canadian Current Events, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Violence on Nov.05, 2008
It seems the Ontario Public Service Employees Union local that represents staff at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has a history of being more concerned about staff safety than patient safety. In the wake of the scandal already resulting from OPSEU’s placement of a sensationalist billboard ad yesterday, the Ontario Psychiatric Survivor Archives sent CMM this copy of the cover of a 1991 newsletter put out by the same OPSEU local. The accompanying article is called, “Campaign for the Prevention of Cruelty to Staff”.
As if a cartoon wherein staff see patients of a psychiatric hospital as savage, carnivorous dinosaurs wasn’t prejudicial and unprofessional enough, the accompanying article explicitly laments that “patient welfare and rights” are given too much importance. Staff safety should be the priority, the article argues, and to that end it provides solutions, like more heavily medicating patients, using restraints more often, and not paying as much attention to patient advocates. Toronto’s NOW magazine ran a story about the OPSEU newsletter in 1991, but so far no one involved at the time is able to recall OPSEU ever so much as apologizing.
For the record, there’s no scientific evidence that mental patients are any more likely to commit acts of violence than the general population. If that’s not true at CAMH, then the staff should be asking, “Why are OUR patients becoming violent?” The inquest into the death of patient Jeffrey James provided some sobering answers to that question…
November 7th, 2008 on 10:36 pm
Working in that industry I can attest to the fact that staff safety is a legitimate concern. I work with street-entrenched hardcore substance abusers, many of whom not infrequently resort to violence or threats of violence as a means getting their needs met.
Two solutions I would propose are empathetic communication, a skill that I believe has shielded me better than anything else. Too many staff escalate client behaviours rather than de-escalate them and much of it, I believe, is tied to ineffective communication skills. Additionally, we need to get people off SSRIs as soon and as safely as possible. The only time I’ve been physically assaulted was by a kid who was doped to eyeballs on SSRIs and other psych meds.
November 8th, 2008 on 7:47 am
Isn’t it funny how no one discusses the violence ‘patients’ face on a daily basis in the name of psychiatric ‘treatment’. I have to wonder how many of the incidents OPSEU is whining about were actually cases of ‘pat9ients’ attempting to defend themselves.
And while sexual assault is certainly unconscionable the OPSEU website fails to mention that ‘patients’ are much more likely to be on the receiving end of this kind of violence as well. This is inherent to the power dynamics one finds in psychoprisons like the CAMH.
November 17th, 2008 on 12:48 pm
[...] than 400,000 outpatient visits” each year. Another telling example of OPSEU’s dubious history of prejudice against mental patients: “In October 1989, OPSEU members chained the doors of the [...]