Winterbourne View Hospital
Winterbourne View hospital was exposed in 2011 through a BBC panorama television broadcast. It showed patients with learning disabilities and challenging behavior being mistreated by the institution’s workers at the assessment and the treatment unit. The abuse was both physical and psychological, and the footage showed that the hospital’s staffs are restraining the patients under chairs while repeatedly assaulting them using their hands and other items in the unit (Heron). The most shocking thing is that the video showed the health workers using stringent measures against the patients, such as cold punishment showers.
Disturbing Incidents
There were other disturbing incidents whereby patients were forced to stay outside when it was extremely cold and another worker pouring mouthwash into another patient’s eyes. Medications were forced into the patients’ mouths and their hairs pulled. The patients were screaming and shaking, and one of the patients tried to jump out of the window of a second floor to escape the torture, but the staff members mocked him. Also, the clip showed one patient being poked severally into the eyes.
Causes and Solutions
Patient abuse and neglect occur mainly due to lack of commitment by bodies that are supposed to ensure that patients are treated with respect and receive optimum care (Reader, and Alex 156). The facility ought to be treated as a “high-risk services” which will enable more frequent and thorough inspections to prevent the abuse of patients by health workers in Winterbourne hospital. Besides, commissioners should ensure that facilities, which care for autistic patients and others with learning disorders, have unimpeded access to effective complaints procedures. This will enable the patients to express how they are being treated without anyone interfering with their complaints so that action can be taken.
Works Cited
Heron, Christine. "Hidden in plain sight: inquiry into disability-related harassment." Local Government Information Unit Policy Briefing 16 (2011).
Reader, Tom W., and Alex Gillespie. "Patient neglect in healthcare institutions: a systematic review and conceptual model." BMC health services research 13.1 (2013): 156.
