Siobhan
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.
Siobhan is in her 60s and lives with bipolar disorder.
‘I was diagnosed in the 1970s and, of course, you didn't disclose, ever. It was a shameful secret,’ Siobhan told the Royal Commission. ‘It's a bit depressing that after all of these decades we still have, despite language becoming a lot more guarded, we still have this insidious discrimination that goes on.’
Siobhan said medical discrimination contributed to the nerve and bone damage that has reduced her mobility.
‘I think that when a person with bipolar presents at a doctor or a hospital, automatically there's this assumption, "Treat it with a grain of salt." We don't even get the benefit of the doubt, and if you are unlucky enough to have a physical disability or chronic illness as well as mental illness you might as well just go and shoot yourself.’
When Siobhan was in her late teens, she contracted meningitis and nearly died ‘because everyone thought [she] was faking illness’.
‘No-one even took my temperature for four days.’
In her 30s, she lost hearing in one ear when a doctor – believing she was lying about the pain to get drugs – refused to treat an infection. A decade later, when she had an eye infection, a nurse lectured her ‘about wasting time and resources’.
‘It was two weeks until I saw a specialist who prescribed antibiotics to treat the infection. By then the damage was done.’
A few years ago, Siobhan was living in a regional town and went to the hospital to get treatment for a sore shoulder and hip. As she was leaving, she fell.
‘Despite my increasingly-anguished pleas for help, I was never examined by a doctor there. Instead, over the phone, I was told by the hospital that I must have wrenched a muscle.’
A few months later, she went back to the hospital where a doctor told her ‘there was no injury and that the pain was in [her] head’. The doctor tried to refer her for psychiatric evaluation.
A scan later showed her hip was broken.
‘The bone in my left hip had died and disintegrated – avascular necrosis – due to the delay in diagnosis and treatment, with the only solution then being an urgent total hip replacement.’
Siobhan said she had to borrow money to travel interstate for the surgery, and is still in debt.
‘We belong in a rubbish bin … every single professional I came in contact with disbelieved me, resulting in the loss of part of my body. And it didn't need to happen if the injury had been treated in that 24-hour window of occurring.’
Siobhan has lodged complaints but said, ‘It's very difficult to prove when things come down to “he said she said”. The person with reduced credibility is going to lose every time.’
As a result of her experiences, Siobhan now has generalised anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘I would like to see something like a presumption of truth,’ Siobhan told the Royal Commission. ‘When a person with a psychiatric disability makes a complaint or an allegation of discrimination they should automatically be believed rather than the other way around, you know, like we have a presumption of innocence under the law.’
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.