No Safe Place

In the late 1990s, I was asked to interview a group of female mental patients who had been raped on their state psychiatric ward by other patients. I traveled out to Nebraska to interview these women and to prepare my testimony. My planning sessions with their lawyers were fascinating-but not as moving as my meetings with the brave women themselves. The institutional abuse of our most vulnerable citizens in state care remains a crucial and unresolved problem.

I would welcome other such similar stories and even more: The remedies and just conclusions.

No Safe Place
By Phyllis Chesler

After a devastating car accident that left her permanently bedridden and in need of around-the-clock care, Andrea X became a long-term patient at the Laurelwood Convalescent Hospital in North Hollywood, California. Paralyzed, unable to speak, eat, or control her bowels or bladder, she also lost the ability to summon help when she needed it. But she could still smile, and register pain and discomfort. In 1982, her family was unable to understand why Andrea suddenly became very restless, whimpered a lot and cried more. But then they also hadn’t understood why, against their wishes, Andrea had recently been moved to an isolated room where she was attended only by male aides.

Then Andrea missed two periods, at which point it was discovered that this totally incapacitated woman, a patient in a state convalescent home, was pregnant. Finally, staff understood why Andrea’s feeding tube had been mysteriously disrupted several times. Andrea’s family sued and won a $7.5 million jury award. But in 1993, an appeals court ruled that the “failure for the facility to provide security” did not constitute “professional negligence.” In doing so, the court reversed the original verdict, sent the case back to the trial court, and ordered that “each party bear its own costs on appeal.” Eventually, the case was settled out of court for less than a million dollars. One can only ask: Just what would constitute “professional negligence?”

Clearly, Andrea did not – and could not – consent to sexual intercourse. Totally disabled and trapped in her own body, she was raped in a convalescent home charged with her care. Are crimes not prosecuted when they occur on state property? Or when the criminal is acting on behalf of the state? Is the state above the law?

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Also see: The FHK Fighting-Women Archive