Willesee's camera crew goes inside Morriset Hospital, an institution for the criminally insane and mentally ill. On the shores of Lake Macquarie in NSW, Morisset is a lock-up for society's rejects - Oct 20, 1983. PGR
this kinda shit is far more interesting to me than the celebrity worship and wealth porn that has saturated western media. especially because i'm 53 and american and before youtube came along there was zero chance i would ever see something like this from somewhere outside the states. even most australians today would probably never have seen this before the internet.
i feel for these people i too suffer from mental illness (PTSD/Anxiety/Depression) and i know what being on boatloads of meds does. Thank god my wife is understanding and is there for me when the ptsd decides to show up in the middle of a good day.
My Dad (Frank Deane) started work at the hospital in 1966 as a Psych Nurse, and continued until about 1976 after an unfortunate motorcycle accident near the Crim one morning in 1974. He tried to come back to work, but his back was shot and couldn't keep it up. Some of the nurses I know from Dad's stories were Colin Boyd, Dan Prbic, Ken Pullen, and Kerrie Hunkin. Dad's now 87, and not too well...
I hope your Dad is now 90 and still here with you Peter 🙏🏼 I lost my Dad very young and it put a great hurting on me I never really learned to accept. Parents are so important. Even when they are very old. Much love and respect from Detroit Michigan.
Mike Willisie...reporters like these are nothing like today's pathetic reporters.these old school reporters like Mike...Yana Wendt...etc did real reporting.they were not afraid of going for the truth and getting dirty.such a difference to today
Actually I couldn't stand Mike Willisee he reeked of insincerity A true phony who had connections in high places (and the only reason he lasted as a journalist) Ugh he made my skin crawl 🤢
Anyone with a phone/tablet, an internet connection, a camera, and a microphone, call themselves reporters now when they go out in the field with their selfi sticks.
Background on how I obtained this video.... I was given a DVD of this via an ex-staff member whose mother is actually in the video. As of Dec 2018 the hospital is in total lockdown due to the large number of tourist visiting the kangaroos.
My nan and pop actually worked there too, nan in ward 19 and pop in 21. No joke. Heaps of really cool and scary stories from them growing up, still want to be a psychologist though.
So how many of these patients actually left the institution alive/ were able to have a life after being there? Would it be right to assume that majority of these people passed away there?
John with half a leg said something very true. I have found that because I am an individual with my own mind and not one to follow the crowd that I am considered a bit barmy. "Not right in the head" as my boss puts it.
OMG I remember this, my uncle is one of the nurse's featured. Both my uncle and father worked there, people must remember that this was 35 years ago. Things have changed for good and bad. I too work in mental health as a RN and have been hit, kicked, punched, bitten and injured on the job. Progress has been made in leaps and bounds, but unfortunately the drug epidemic that exists now is going to set us back 50 years. We are all trained in mandatory self defence.
Im doing some research and investigating for a documentary series I'll be releasing at the end of the year. Would love to interview your uncle if there were any way to organise that?
@@simsim5919 As with any type of medicine there is the now and then there is the future when improvements are made after gaining further knowledge. Let's use your argument by saying that surgical operations were carried out without anaesthetic. That was until anapestics became know and used extensively. When first used those drugs were dangerous and caused deaths and injuries so better anaesthetics have been developed. However not everyone, either in the past or present, has a good outcome but are you saying that because some unfortunate people have side effects we should not use them? Many people have been helped to live lives they would otherwise not have had due to the use of antipsychotics. Those suffering psychoses generally have no insight into their condition and believe they are OK and everyone else is insane. Because of this, and other factors, the sufferers hate taking any medication which removes those beliefs. Antipsychotics used today are different from those used in the past and have come a long way to alleviating some of the worst side effects. If these modern medications had been available then they would have been used but then they would also have been superseded by more modern treatments. People who are not psychotic should not take antipsychotic medications and people who are floridly psychotic are more than likely to "Quickly lose everything" if they don't. Bear in mind each psychotic episode is cumulative and the longer each episode lasts the greater the damage. Here are the three rules for medication. 1, Minimum dose. 2. For maximum treatment, ie alleviating effect. 3. With the minimum of side effects. Have we reached the point where the pinnacle has been reached in terms of treatment for mentally illness? Of course not, to say so would be absurd, but nowadays, because of programs such as are being discussed, many of the sufferers are homeless or in prison; some have committed major crimes in order they be classified as "Forensic" and such places are growing.
I don’t know about you guys but if I was severely mentally ill and someone tried to wake me up at 6:30am I’d be pegging shoes and throwing hands as well. 😂
Do you know what ward it was? I’m so interested in the history of Morrisset hospital, I used to visit the hospital grounds a lot when I was younger to see the kangaroos
Tastefully and sensitively produced documentary. Well directed , filmed and edited...Some appear a victim of the 'system' and 'labeling'. Others ,their complex illness's, demons and outbursts... Old George who just wanted to sleep, or the lady who endured 178 shock treatments.
This is horrifying. They often sit around and do nothing... there drugged up and have there brains fried ffs sake. Of course there just sitting there. If they act normal they give them more treatments!! This is in humane !
You know nothing. Why are they "sitting around and doing nothing"? I'll tell you. Because the bleeding hearts complained so vociferously about mentally ill people "being used as slave labour" that they all lost their jobs. Many of them died because of it, having lost their purpose and status, while others regressed to acting out. It is people like you I find "horrifying."
@@simsim5919 You are either a patient with a grudge or, which sounds more likely, someone shooting their mouth of about something they know nothing about.
I have explored ward 21 a number of times and I have noticed that all the nurses cottages on the outside of the large wall are pretty much all gone, I have been wanting to see pictures of them intact for ages now but have come to to avail, I can’t seem to find any pictures of them online before they were destroyed by vandals… would anyone have any pictures of them intact?
Another major problem is drug withdrawal being so often used in confirming or showing why the treatment is needed in so many of the so-called ill and therefore they will never know whether some lives can be salvaged or doomed for a life filled with medication and boredom.
Watching this as a 14-year-old schoolboy one Sunday night. I never believed that in my wildest dreams I would actually be a mental health nurse there after all these years. It's a beautiful, peaceful, place that sadly is rundown, gardens not maintained and a very different place. Mental health here is very very different now. Drugs like Ice, Cannabis and cocaine is the real evil. It resides in the people and speaks for the devil.
ECT = cruel and unusual punishment. Barbarism, as most of psychiatry always has been. A certain amount of psychosis is perhaps normal in our unnatural, inhuman(e) modern world.
@@timcastle1844 hard to say mostly bs when my father knew Abo Henry and few other hard kent oaths you'll never hear of. But they only tell what they want you to hear lol
You wonder what happened to them when these patients died... did their family take them back for burial? Were they quietly taken away and buried in a empty plot with no name, number or marker? Once dead, these people meant a lot less than when they were alive... which wasn't much.
I used to visit here so much when I was younger when it was open to the public, always so many kangaroos and now that I’m older, I love the history of morisset hospital and the old buildings. What was it like when you were sent here in the 80s? A lot has changed with the treatment of mental illnesses
Which would you choose if you were severely depressed and suicidal a couple of ECT's or a bucket load of drugs for several years. Some of the new anti depressants are almost impossible to stop. Please do some real research.
@@timcastle1844 yes. My friend swears by it. It was the only thing keeping her out of the institution. It did not muck her memory up. It stabilised her from psychotic to normal in one session. These commenters have been watching too many Hollywood movies.
@@cincin4515 "Cuckoo's Nest" was a good book and great movie but many in the audiences saw it as a documentary. During the time this documentary was made it was fashionable to make psychiatric institutions look as bad as possible, photo's in black and white during winter always make a place look like it's in a horror movie, then interview some staff to find the one whose comments can be manipulated, followed by a patient who can be presented as a harmless innocent who would not harm a fly. What they never speak about is the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were saved by often short interventions or the dedicated staff who spent their whole lives caring for those whom society, even today, discard only to be pilloried by people who know nothing for an agenda which has seen the mentally ill ill returned to prisons whence they came. My big question is when all of those hospitals were sold off, to private developers, where did all the money go? Because I can assure you it did not go to the mentally ill. Kew Hospital in Melbourne Victoria was condemned as "Uninhabitable" by the government who had spent little to no money on its upkeep for years, another ploy. It was closed and sold to a private developer. The Buildings still stand and have become some of the most expensive real estate in the city. And another, Peat Island sits at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River in NSW, it was also condemned, sold to private developers and is now an exclusive enclave with its own marina. See a pattern here? So of course the stories of how dreadful these hospitals were rise periodically because they keep the population from seeing the corruption which is still taking place.
Awesome watch, nz institutions were similar so too were the peopl who worked in them...I started working in MH in the middle 90,s it had changed by then but there were still patients like " George"
What happened to George? The hospital staff are physically attacking this Aboriginal Elder on camera. The supervisor admits to smashing the patients in order to control them. This video is relevant today and reflects the depravity of Australia's prison systems, meaning the system itself and the people involved with the management of them.
this is why you don’t work in mental health, they are there for a reason, if you allow them to be resilient or take control they lose all progress that was made from the doctors and the workers, if the patient or prisoner see others act like this and it is allowed they to lose progress that they have been working on. You won’t understand and you never will. George passed away from natural causes, he never was released.
The Kangaroos are still there and were a tourist attraction for years till it upset the patients and staff with the busloads coming out wandering around and littering
what the hell, the nurse is not taking him seriously and they wonder why the patients act out this is disterbing and awakening too. I visit the place sometimes and once a male nurse ran out screaming at me I was taking video of him I handled it well but he was so aggressive he should be locked there, who ever is an ass hole to these poor people should be ashamed and know what goes around my gosh comes around people, believe it.
Oh crap thank you it sounds very stressing and dealing with the violent is what I will not do there mentaly defective and strick out. they also do lie my family member adopted is so violent she is 20 now and stabs and ashes people the cops are terrafied of her and never force her lock up. shes got alot of spiritual addiction drugs sorry and spirit attachments that shes got 40 at least personalities interesting but scares tyhe living crap out of me you dont know when she will strick the workers need a metal and high pay. god bless you all, no way Id do it aged care I left because of addictions and abuse to us nurses.
I dont want to try it but aged care and disability is very much the same , this violence and crazy hatred toward other humans is why I wont work in home care and aged care. I am sorry you suffered from it thank you for your story I love to learn more.
The most shocking thing I saw here was when they beeped the word cunt in an Aussie program 🤣🤣🤣....honestly though it's amazing how much better this place seems to have been than every single doc I've seen on American institutions, and I've seen a ton.
My understanding is that this year people from Morriset Hospital are slowly being integrated in to the public due to the fact that the Government are getting rid of all their disable places.
The mentally ill are being sent to prison, from whence they came a century ago, or out on the streets. Not quite what governments of both persuasions promised. Meanwhile the hospital lands have mostly been sold off to property developers. That is something everyone should "understand".
Prime real estate. This & Callum Park are/were beautiful waterfront properties. Many were sold off in the nineties and the patients thrown into the streets for their "independence". Never let humanity stand in the way of prime real estate. Says every property developer everywhere.
@@BrownSugarBaby1992 Hahahaha! I expect you are happy now, then, because a large number of the mentally ill are being either sent to prison or are homeless and abused on the streets. I say to the know nothings, like yourself, well done on your "victory"! Hahahahaha!
I don’t know about you guys but if I was severely mentally ill and someone tried to wake me up at 6:30am I’d be pegging shoes and throwing hands as well. 😂
Honestly belive the bloke whom said he was physically abued infrunt of the camera ...the admin denied it happened...i know different from what my mother told me ...when i had to see her .she even remembered when she came better out of her lapes...i also know they mess her around trying out medications,....i will say the most unethical fast of a hospital is katoomba .im a cluey observant, ive become rather sharp throughout the years helping mum from ageof 4 was tort to get mums medication buy welfare. got the understanding of triggers and warniings ...i also observed the differences of others ...i honestly can say mums been in a few but katoomba prolongs the illness even had worsened. I seen a ridiculous dr whom dress in coloured suit platforms as well ....i was thinking this is strange ....when mum hot tranfered she court up and got better . I dont kniw what katoomba is playing at but there one to watch out for ...btw mum has bipolar .given the right levels shes good ....it was only that a new dr stuffed her medications up she endured up there ...
I find that there are in this film are many aboriginal men here,they absolutely will not handle it there,being locked up is so not what they need. omg. need to be in the bush.
Yes, let's send all the Aboriginal people "to the bush" despite the fact many of them are suburban people, like any other, and have never been there and would not survive.
yep it is,they get away with it because like that nurse going oh really that doesnt sound right, he was covering up the abuse ,vicious cycle, I dont have answers or a solution only love heals but how do you help the evil. this guys not but troubled.