Juie Stansfield chief executive of In Control responds to the
shocking BBC Panorama programme - 'Undercover Care'.
You would think that in this day and age,
attitudes towards disabled people would not resemble those
horrifying sights so many people witnessed on the Panorama
programme this week.
In the past, people were segregated into
asylums due to fear and people who were different were seen as
threat. By the turn of the 20th century, they were
segregated for reasons less about threat and fear but from the new
wave of the eugenics movement. By 1948, as the new health service
was born, people were seen as sick and needing treatment. Thus the
old workhouses and asylums were transformed into hospitals. A
lot of these hospitals are still around today and still portray a
facade of "making people better" rather than the underlying reason
of "containment". Whilst safeguarding is often given as a good
reason for segregating people, there must be enough evidence now to
show this is simply the worst way of safeguarding people.
People who are segregated are de-humanised and as such we saw the
worst possible result this week when many of us watched in horror
at the sheer disrespect and abuse of people in Bristol. The
difficult pill to swallow is segregation simply does not work by
nature. A number of people phoned me and said they need better
staff there don't they? NO! These institutions need to be
closed and the best staff will support people individually. Staff
generally do not go into the care profession to make people's lives
hell, they go in for the right reasons, but institutions of any
kind are simply the ripest environment for abuse to happen. The
fundamental nature of segregation leaves the environment rife for
the kind of abuse we have witnessed over and over again in such
institutions and whilst there is an initial outcry, it's often
short lived and soon becomes yesterday chip paper by the public at
large.
A survey in 2002, initiated for the Scottish Consortium for
Learning Disability, revealed that 61 percent of those questioned
would feel 'comfortable' living next door to a person with a
learning disability. Attitudes from younger people were even more
positive about inclusion than older respondents i.e. 38 percent of
people under 35 believed people with learning disabilities should
be able to live in their own homes with support, only 19 percent of
those 55 years and over felt the same. Eighty-eight percent of the
survey favoured community based support to assist people. Regarding
where people should live, 50 percent of those surveyed saw 'special
housing with support' as the answer with no one thinking a hospital
was appropriate.
The only way to stop such levels of abuse
is to bring people back where they belong, back into society where
the people who love and care for them can see them at any time and
neighbours and communities can see what levels of care and support
are being given to the person and furthermore start to see what
people themselves can contribute back. The public is ready. People
themselves have always been ready. They just want an ordinary
life that every other person considers a born right.
Last Updated : 02 June 2011. Page Author: Laura Bimpson.
