Matilda, Yaneke and Brea
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Matilda is a young autistic woman who is non-verbal and has cognitive disability. She spent more than 10 years living in a group home before returning to live with her family a few years ago.
Her mother, Yaneke, told the Royal Commission that staff at the home created a ‘culture’ of sedating the residents – without the residents’ or their families’ knowledge or consent.
Yaneke said that when Matilda first moved into the group home, she was ‘doing well’. The family’s doctor would visit Matilda on a regular basis and supervise her medical regime.
When the family doctor retired, Matilda’s family began to notice a change in Matilda’s behaviour. All of a sudden, said Brea, she would come home on the weekend and spend her days flopped out on the couch like she was ‘comatose’.
The family later discovered Matilda had been put under the supervision of a new doctor without their authority. ‘At no time were we ever consulted,’ said Brea.
In addition to her regular medication, staff were giving Matilda ‘a lot’ of additional medication. Yaneke said these included psychotic sedatives – drugs routinely prescribed as a chemical restraint for disruptive behaviours.
Without warning, Matilda’s behaviour changed again. She became ‘very aggressive’ and angry. She’d wake up the family in the early hours of morning, pulling them from bed and dragging them around the house.
‘[It was] really, really terrible,’ said Yaneke. Her daughter was in this aggressive state but didn’t seem to know what she wanted. ‘Nothing was helping.’
The family lodged a complaint with the home’s management. ‘They did a little investigating at the start internally, and then nothing went anywhere,’ said Brea.
Yaneke did her own investigating. One day she noticed Matilda being loaded into the residents’ minibus in ‘a sedated state’. When it returned hours later, Matilda ‘could hardly walk’. She stumbled into the house and went ‘off to bed until morning’.
The family decided to seek independent medical advice on the use of chemical restraints. The psychiatrist said Matilda was being overmedicated and it could take years to wean her off the drug.
Brea says the family doesn’t believe staff ever followed the policies and procedures around the use of restrictive practices. ‘At no time were we ever consulted,’ she said.
Finally, once the independent psychiatrist became involved, staff stopped dispensing the psychotic sedative to Matilda. ‘They had no other choice. They had to stop,’ said Yaneke.
In the end, the family decided to remove Matilda from the group accommodation. Yaneke said she would rather her daughter live with her ageing parents than a place where the staff and management ‘are nothing but bullies’.
‘I will never send [Matilda] there. I don’t trust them because [of] what they did, it’s a criminal act giving her medications like that. Might as well get a gun and shoot her.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.