A teenage girl has had to be sedated and threatened with intramuscular injection merely to contain her behaviour while being inappropriately detained at an adult psychiatric unit with 30 seriously mentally ill adults, the High Court heard yesterday.
Evidence was given that the girl is greatly traumatised following sexual abuse as a child, but is not considered psychiatrically ill and does not require medication for any illness.
After hearing evidence in camera from psychiatrists yesterday afternoon, the judge adjourned the hearing to Tuesday. The girl will remain in the psychiatric unit in the meantime.
Earlier, a consultant psychiatrist said the girl had been threatening and abusive to staff several times. Once even five staff could not control her.
She had agreed to take a tranquilliser on one occasion only after being threatened with intramuscular injection.
The psychiatrist said she had an ethical problem with giving medication to a patient merely to control behaviour, and there were also medical risks attached to such medication.
The 16-year-old girl's case again came before Mr Justice Kelly yesterday. He has to decide where to place her and had heard that what she requires - a secure facility where she could receive appropriate counselling and support, including anger management therapy - was not available.
The girl was in foster care from the age of one to 10 years. She had been sexually abused at the age of 10, abused solvents from the age of 12 and drugs from age 14. She also has an alcohol problem. She had made several attempts at self-harm, including cutting herself, two attempts to hang herself and setting fire to herself.
The option of placing the girl at the Central Mental Hospital had been raised, but the judge was told yesterday it was not appropriate, and in any event, all seven female beds at the hospital were full.
The consultant psychiatrist attached to the unit where the girl remains said that, because she required to have two staff with her at all times, this was having an adverse effect on providing for the needs of the acutely ill adults in the ward.
The psychiatrist said the girl had no level of psychiatric illness but had a behavioural disorder with associated alcohol, drug and solvents abuse. The girl was very angry with society and perceived it as having failed her in relation to the help she had received to date.