Man Got 130 Forced Electro-Shock Treatments

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130 Forced Electro-Shock Treatments

Rally at Riverview Hospital draws attention to man, 71, who's had 130 in 3 years

Keith Fraser
The Province

Monday, May 06, 2002

Supporters of a man who has received 130 forced electro-shock treatments in three years gathered yesterday for a protest rally outside Riverview Hospital.

"The message was to stop shock treatments, in this case with Michael Matthews, and to cut the funding for shock treatment," said Julie Butler, a member of the Vancouver-based group Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

"With all the [health] cuts that are going on, our message is to just cut it. If somebody is clamouring to have ECT [electro-convulsive therapy], which is rare, then they can pay for it."

Several dozen people attended the rally outside the Coquitlam mental hospital and a small group later went inside to visit with Matthews, 71, who has been a patient at Riverview for the past 40 years.

After a dispute with hospital staff over some photographs taken by the group, the visitors were told to leave the premises, said Lou Griffith, who claims her film was confiscated by the staff.

Butler, who says she was banned from visiting the hospital after she began seeing Matthews in November and the case was first reported in the media, said it's not clear why he was brought to the hospital in the first place.

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Hospital psychiatrists have reportedly said Matthews can't give consent to the treatments because of his mental state. Therefore, like many elderly patients, they're giving it to him involuntarily.

The treatments have long been controversial in the psychiatric world.

"The side effects -- one for one -- cause permanent memory loss. How it's promoted is that a person will temporarily lose their memory, but that's not true," said Butler. "Also it can cause brain damage, brain hemorrhaging and death in a two-week period after."

The hospital could not be reached for comment.