Light on Morisset: Current Practices in mental health care

The practices of the 1950s and 1960s used at Morisset are foreign to current disability standards.

Today practices are person-centred, multi-disciplinary and holistic in nature. The person is at the centre of the treatment and they are the upmost consideration. Disability care is now centred around quality of life and is conscientious of morals and ethics.

In 2013, the Australian government the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) which is governed by the NDIS Act 2013.

The guiding purpose of the NDIS as stated in the Act are as follows:

• support the independence and social and economic participation of people with disability
• provide reasonable and necessary supports, including early intervention supports, for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme
• enable people with disability to exercise choice and control in the pursuit of their goals and the planning and delivery of their supports
• promote the provision of high quality and innovative supports that enable people with disability to maximise independent lifestyles and full inclusion in the community
• protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm arising from poor quality or unsafe supports or services provided under the NDIS
  

As can be seen the NDIS prioritises community involvement. The ultimate aim is to normalise disabilities and maximise the quality of life of persons with disabilities.

Many of the practices of the 1950s and 1960s used at Morisset and similar facilities would now be deemed as 'restricted practices'. Such practices are heavily monitored by regulatory bodies like the Department of Community and Justice. Ultimately, these practices are reserved for exceptional circumstances and the aim is eventual removal of these practices entirely.

Categories of restricted practices include: seclusion, chemical restraint, mechanical restraint, physical restraint and environmental restraint.

This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License