Expert who warned of ‘incarcerating’ people with disabilities speaks at inquiry
HALIFAX — The author of a study that sounded an alarm over confining Nova Scotians with intellectual disabilities in a psychiatric ward has testified the “incarcerated” residents were denied their human rights and good care practices.
Dorothy Griffiths gave her evidence via video conference last week at a human rights inquiry considering whether the human rights of Joey Delaney, Beth MacLean and the late Sheila Livingstone were violated by confining them in psychiatric wards or hospital-like settings rather than a home in the community with appropriate care.
Griffiths is a nationally recognized expert in the care of people with so-called “dual diagnoses” of intellectual disabilities and mental illness, and she has participated as a consultant in the closures of institutions and transfer of residents into Ontario small options homes.
In 2006, she and Dr. Chrissoula Stavrakaki delivered a report to the Nova Scotia Hospital that concluded it was “verging” on violating the basic rights of people with disabilities by leaving them in locked-door psychiatric unit for years after they’d been medically discharged.