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ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 3271 • Posted: Saturday May 10, 2003  

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News24 (South Africa), May 9, 2003
http://www.news24.com/

Cape Town – The Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights in South Africa on Friday reiterated a call to abolish the use of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) in state and private psychiatric institutions, with new legislation needed to achieve this.

“ECT is given at more than 20 institutions countywide and is a barbaric practice we need to abolish,” said commission head Jean Bethel.

Bethel said the commission was conducting research into cases of abuse, both physical and sexual, at psychiatric institutions.

Highlighting the hundreds of cases the commission was analysing, Bethel said electro-shock treatment usually consists of 10 to 12 shocks over a period of weeks.

“They put electrodes to the brain and discharge up to 420 volts of electricity and literally fry the brains of patients,” Bethel charged.

‘Ludicrous’

But her contentions were strongly denied by the South African Society of Psychiatrists as “ludicrous”.

“ECT is Scientology in 1969, and according to church spokesperson Ryan Hogarth, the church as a religious philosophy “did not subscribe to psychiatry and according to our creed of the church the study of minds and the healing of mental illness should not be alienated from religion or condoned by non-religious fields”.

Hogarth said mental healing needed bring the field “under the law”.

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