Autistic people are enduring state-sanctioned torture in the UK. Yet we do nothing

Have you watched The Assembly? It is a fabulous chat show on ITV that is funny, insightful and uplifting instead of the format’s usual inanities and celebrity plugs. Those taking the hot seat seem nervous at the outset but often moved by the end. Many questions are brilliantly direct, some bizarrely offbeat.

Sir Stephen Fry was asked about his shower routine along with questions about his past use of cocaine, his suicide attempts and sexual positioning. Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon looked uncomfortable being grilled on her arrest, then emotional discussing her miscarriage, lack of children and thoughts of fostering.

The secret of this French import that strips away standard pretensions of both celebrity and television is simple: the interviewers are autistic, neurodivergent or have learning disabilities. It provides a platform for the sort of people all too often banished to the fringes of society, displaying their humanity, vibrancy and wit while highlighting the value of harnessing citizens with different perspectives. The 25 interrogators are becoming cult stars themselves.

Yet, hidden away from television cameras, hundreds of similar people are trapped in psychiatric hellholes with their lives shattered in a grotesque scandal that drags on and on – despite endless promises from bureaucrats and politicians to end it.

This week marks 15 years since broadcasting of the BBC Panorama exposé of abuse at Winterbourne View, a hospital owned by a Swiss-based private equity firm. Secretly-filmed footage showed residents with learning disabilities beaten, brutally restrained and bullied under the “care” of a firm charging £3,500 a week. There was shocking complacency by authorities: police were called 29 times yet only pursued one assault case; the safeguarding board received 40 alerts; victims were taken 78 times to hospital. Even when a carer blew the whistle, the statutory watchdog failed to listen.

We were told this horror story was a watershed. David Cameron was “appalled”. Eleven staff were convicted of neglect and ill-treatment with six sent to jail. The hospital was shut. Ministers pledged action. An inquiry called for closure of such in-patient institutions and urgent shift to community-based care to thwart abuse. Yet, as the prime minister told parliament, everyone knew the documentary just showed a systemic state failure known for decades. “We have to do more to get people out of hospitals and into loving, caring homes in the community,” declared Cameron.

But almost nothing has changed for all the talk of reform, pledges to transform care, changes of government and weary succession of health and social care ministers. Politicians promise action, officials spew platitudes, experts talk of lessons learned.

Instead we have seen a string of disturbing new revelations about abuse, regulatory failures, missed targets and ignored whistleblowers. Other places purporting to offer care, endorsed by the state and funded by taxpayers have joined Winterbourne on the roll of infamy – Mendip House, Whorlton Hall, Muckamore Abbey, Cygnet Yew Trees, Cawston Park, Edenfield Centre, St Andrews Healthcare. Again and again, we glimpse cruelty inflicted on vulnerable people trapped in terror.

Yet, this is just the tip of an abusive iceberg. Beneath the surface of each scandal is the medically and morally indefensible system in which autistic people and citizens with learning disabilities are locked in costly and unsuitable units due to deficiencies in social care.

Their average stay in a mental health hospital is almost five years, compared with about 40 days for other citizens. There is routine chemical coshing. Even teenage girls suffer forceful restraint by groups of adults. Some are held in solitary confinement for decades; others fed through hatches like animals. ‘‘Citizens seeking support end up being held in conditions that are simply inhumane, intensifying any mental health problems and tearing families apart,” admitted Sir Jeremy Hunt after his long stint as health and social care secretary.

Nothing has really changed under Labour. Latest official figures suggest 2,160 people with autism and learning disabilities are detained in England and Wales. The government passed a mental health act that finally removes autism or learning disability as sole reason to lock up someone but shamefully deferred implementation until there is “sufficient” community provision – which means indefinitely. As Rightful Lives campaign group says, there are too many vested interests blocking change including all the sharks in suits feeding voraciously on the system and psychiatrists intent on retaining the status quo.

I have spoken with many traumatised families and victims of this state-sanctioned torture. Among the first was an autistic woman called Alexis Quinn, a schoolteacher and international swimmer detained for three years after suffering a crisis following the birth of her daughter and death of her brother. She was restrained 97 times, placed in seclusion on 17 occasions, put on powerful drugs that dulled her mind and attempted suicide while imprisoned amid chaos. Eventually she managed to escape and fled to Nigeria before writing a book to highlight such trauma.

Now working at the Restraint Reduction Network, she collaborates with a collective of charities and activists demanding reform. ‘‘Abuse is the culture of these locked wards so why is the government stalling?” she asked me. “People are trapped in detention due to catastrophic failures in schools, mental health settings and community support. The new act is supposed to offer change but the government has provided no funding or roadmap to improve community support. As a survivor who knows the agony of captivity, I can see the direct pipeline from closed wards to homelessness, suicide, mental health crises and inappropriate forensic pathways.”

This remarkable woman underscores the societal benefit of embracing rather than detaining autistic people and citizens with learning disabilities – just like all those panelists on The Assembly. But bureaucrats, commissioners, health chiefs and politicians prefer to blow more than half a billion pounds a year on a callous system that crushes marginalised citizens.

“Nothing has changed since Winterbourne View,” said Alexis. Sadly, she is right in this country that fails to care.

المصدر: iNews