Why no compensation for those wasted years?

[Scally]

Some of you know I do social policy research for a living.
I picked up one brilliant interview yesterday with a very capable and articulate former Lennox Castle (Hospital/Learning Disability institution) resident, a single man now aged 70 who got put away in a bad boys home aged 13 for nicking a bike, then put in the Castle and didnt get out for forty years. He spent most of his adult life on day release working in piggeries in Larbert for a few bob a week and going home to the ward at night. Nothing much wrong with him at all, no education and very limited horizons but a lovely fellow, a gentle giant. No bank account, no car, no relatives, no savings, no disability benefits because he isnt disabled (!), no telephone, teetotal, non smoker, simple one-bed council flat, spends all his time down at the bowling club helping out. Sacked his social worker years ago because she patronised him by showing him communication cards with symbols on, a kindly neighbour helps with paperwork etc ...

Some things have improved a bit over the years...... but I dearly wish that a human rights lawyer could do something for folk like this. They deserve compensation. They were robbed of a life, and yet they seem to bear no grudge because they lack the sophistry to realise how badly they were cheated by the system. Lest we forget....

[Guest]

Not LD but I remember a case a few years back where a lady died in a care home and there was a disagreement about who should be responsible for the cost of the funeral, the LA sent the home a letter stating that the care home was a business like any other and was responsible for the cost of the disposal of its waste, I later read that she was, as I had suspected, an ex-inpatient of a long-stay aslylum.

I have met some of these women, the epitomy of the public perception of madness, they were not mad but institutionalised, some of them were single mothers, some incarcerated for life simply because a member of their family believed that they had had extra-marital sex. I also met a youngish man, incarcerated since the age of 12, he was in a rehab unit along with men much older than him awaiting a home in the community, I got to know these people too and wondered how they would cope in the community, they not only had no social skills but they also displayed what to society would be inappropriate behaviour, the consequence of years of institutional living.

I agree that they are owed something to compensate them for the loss of the lives they could have led and their freedom but what, you cannot buy back the decades, young lives wasted, individuals put away and forgotten and then returned to society sometimes 40 or 50 years later and expected to re-integrate.

[rosemary]

We had a case here where a gentleman had been 'locked away' for playing the wag from school. When we met him approx 1970/72 he had been a patient over 40 yrs. He lived a while after that and died in there too.

[Lazydaisy]

I nursed an elderly lady in the 1980's, who had had the misfortune to have an illegitimate baby. The baby was taken from her, and she went into the workhouse and was never released. The workhouse became an old peoples home and she was still there, then she needed nursing care and came to us to end her days. She had been in care for around 60 years.

[entity]

Excalibur,

I dearly wish that a human rights lawyer could do something for folk like this. They deserve compensation. They were robbed of a life, and yet they seem to bear no grudge because they lack the sophistry to realise how badly they were cheated by the system. Lest we forget....

I totally agree with your sentiment.

[diva]

I agree too. I am completely gobsmacked by the stories of these peoples lives.