DLM
12-23-2004, 07:30 AM
No room left for psychiatric treatment
Penetanguishene can't help inmate's rehab
How many inmates ignored in prisons?
ROBERT CRIBB
Tor.Star STAFF REPORTER
Six years ago, a 21-year-old named Alessandro Orru was accused of prowling around the house of a female neighbour near his Vaughan home and making sexually explicit remarks over the phone.
He has been locked up ever since in psychiatric facilities, where he says he has faced solitary confinement, chain restraints, barred windows and little in the way of treatment. And without access to treatment, Orru can't win his freedom.
An Ontario judge is expected to rule today on whether Orru must be moved from the maximum-security Penetanguishene facility, where he's been held since 1999, to the medium-security Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, which offers the kind of treatment he requires.
Orru's problem: There is no room for him in medium and minimum-security facilities like Brockville that focus on rehabilitating psychiatric patients.
So for the past five years he has been locked instead in a maximum-security facility built to incarcerate the province's most dangerous patients, who often have more remote chances of rehabilitation.
Orru's case raises troubling questions about the number of psychiatric patients — potentially numbering in the hundreds — who have been detained for years without proper treatment, says Orru's lawyer, Anik Morrow.
"By not transferring him (to Brockville), we're withholding treatment from him — and therefore his hopes of ever re-entering the community," she says.
For the past five years, Orru has lived inside the high-wire fence and "cell-like room" of the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, spending his days in tightly controlled seclusion.
In an affidavit submitted to the court, Orru says he wants to be moved to the Brockville facility where he believes he can receive better treatment and improve his condition.
"I wish to get better and one day return home to my family," says the affidavit.
Orru was charged with "prowl by night" and criminal harassment in 1998 after a woman complained to police that he was ringing her doorbell and running away, and calling her house numerous times "being both sexually explicit and derogatory towards her."
He was found not criminally responsible because of a "mental defect."
He was ordered into psychiatric care at the Whitby Mental Health Centre. Like others found not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial, Orru is in custody of the province. His case is monitored by the Ontario Review Board, which checks on his status regularly to determine what treatment he should have and whether he is still a risk to the public.
Once at the Whitby Mental Health Centre he had an allergic drug reaction that caused him to "convulse and lapse into shock," according to Orru's affidavit.
Later, Orru says, Whitby staff "deemed my behaviour inappropriate and I was placed in seclusion" for three months and "kept in waist to wrist chain restraints."
Officials with the Whitby Health Centre did not respond to requests for an interview yesterday.
Orru was moved to the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene in November 1999.
In July, the review board ordered Orru transferred to the Brockville facility. But five months later, he remains locked tight on Ward 2 of the Penetanguishene facility.
Last year, physicians at the Brockville facility assessed Orru for 90 days. They found him to be "treatable," that he "reacted favourably" to their techniques and was "able to inhibit his behaviours," says a factum submitted to the court by Orru's lawyer.
Dr. John Bradford, the specialist at the Brockville facility who conducted Orru's assessment, said yesterday that while Orru has received psychiatric treatment in Penetanguishene, the expertise at his facility would be more appropriate.
"Is he rehabilitatable? Can he move on? In my opinion, yes. It really bothers me that I'm not in a position to take him quicker.... I think, once he's in a medium-security setting, it helps motivate people, it creates a sense of optimism.... He should have been in by now. I'm the first one to admit that. But it's about resources."
There are no available beds in Brockville, he said. If a court rules today that Orru must be moved immediately to Brockville, he would have to "push someone else out the door who isn't ready to go. I'll do whatever I'm ordered to do, but it's a very difficult situation."
Morrow says Orru's case illustrates a much larger problem of psychiatric patients being lost in an underfunded system.
Penetanguishene can't help inmate's rehab
How many inmates ignored in prisons?
ROBERT CRIBB
Tor.Star STAFF REPORTER
Six years ago, a 21-year-old named Alessandro Orru was accused of prowling around the house of a female neighbour near his Vaughan home and making sexually explicit remarks over the phone.
He has been locked up ever since in psychiatric facilities, where he says he has faced solitary confinement, chain restraints, barred windows and little in the way of treatment. And without access to treatment, Orru can't win his freedom.
An Ontario judge is expected to rule today on whether Orru must be moved from the maximum-security Penetanguishene facility, where he's been held since 1999, to the medium-security Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, which offers the kind of treatment he requires.
Orru's problem: There is no room for him in medium and minimum-security facilities like Brockville that focus on rehabilitating psychiatric patients.
So for the past five years he has been locked instead in a maximum-security facility built to incarcerate the province's most dangerous patients, who often have more remote chances of rehabilitation.
Orru's case raises troubling questions about the number of psychiatric patients — potentially numbering in the hundreds — who have been detained for years without proper treatment, says Orru's lawyer, Anik Morrow.
"By not transferring him (to Brockville), we're withholding treatment from him — and therefore his hopes of ever re-entering the community," she says.
For the past five years, Orru has lived inside the high-wire fence and "cell-like room" of the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, spending his days in tightly controlled seclusion.
In an affidavit submitted to the court, Orru says he wants to be moved to the Brockville facility where he believes he can receive better treatment and improve his condition.
"I wish to get better and one day return home to my family," says the affidavit.
Orru was charged with "prowl by night" and criminal harassment in 1998 after a woman complained to police that he was ringing her doorbell and running away, and calling her house numerous times "being both sexually explicit and derogatory towards her."
He was found not criminally responsible because of a "mental defect."
He was ordered into psychiatric care at the Whitby Mental Health Centre. Like others found not criminally responsible or unfit to stand trial, Orru is in custody of the province. His case is monitored by the Ontario Review Board, which checks on his status regularly to determine what treatment he should have and whether he is still a risk to the public.
Once at the Whitby Mental Health Centre he had an allergic drug reaction that caused him to "convulse and lapse into shock," according to Orru's affidavit.
Later, Orru says, Whitby staff "deemed my behaviour inappropriate and I was placed in seclusion" for three months and "kept in waist to wrist chain restraints."
Officials with the Whitby Health Centre did not respond to requests for an interview yesterday.
Orru was moved to the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene in November 1999.
In July, the review board ordered Orru transferred to the Brockville facility. But five months later, he remains locked tight on Ward 2 of the Penetanguishene facility.
Last year, physicians at the Brockville facility assessed Orru for 90 days. They found him to be "treatable," that he "reacted favourably" to their techniques and was "able to inhibit his behaviours," says a factum submitted to the court by Orru's lawyer.
Dr. John Bradford, the specialist at the Brockville facility who conducted Orru's assessment, said yesterday that while Orru has received psychiatric treatment in Penetanguishene, the expertise at his facility would be more appropriate.
"Is he rehabilitatable? Can he move on? In my opinion, yes. It really bothers me that I'm not in a position to take him quicker.... I think, once he's in a medium-security setting, it helps motivate people, it creates a sense of optimism.... He should have been in by now. I'm the first one to admit that. But it's about resources."
There are no available beds in Brockville, he said. If a court rules today that Orru must be moved immediately to Brockville, he would have to "push someone else out the door who isn't ready to go. I'll do whatever I'm ordered to do, but it's a very difficult situation."
Morrow says Orru's case illustrates a much larger problem of psychiatric patients being lost in an underfunded system.