Overmedication of intellectually disabled people costing lives, inquiry told
Medical professionals should get mandatory training in dealing with people with intellectual disabilities, particularly in the use of psychotropic drugs, the disability royal commission has heard.
The lack of skills in dealing with such people when they are experiencing a sensory crisis is costing lives, the special education teacher Paula McGowan told the inquiry on Tuesday.
McGowan detailed the story of her son Oliver, who had suffered a mild intellectual disability from birth.
Oliver died in 2016 of a combination of pneumonia and hypoxic brain injury after having a severe reaction to the psychotropic drug olanzapine.
McGowan said the 18-year-old had been given the drug while having a seizure because of behaviour that was perceived as challenging.
But she said she believed his behaviour was the very same that any other person, who was rightly frightened and anxious, would experience while in seizure.
“We believe that if Oliver had not have had the labels of autism and intellectual disability attached to him, he would absolutely have not have been prescribed psychotropic medications,” McGowan said.
She said it became clear at an inquest into her son’s death that medical, health and other social care professionals received no training in dealing with people like Oliver.
It led her to campaign for the introduction of laws requiring they receive such training, which are due to come into force in the UK in 2021.
McGowan has since moved to Australia with her husband and said she believed there might be similar issues here in relation to the overmedication and premature death of people with a disability.
“Australia must address why so many people with an intellectual disability are medicated,” she said. “We need to ask whether alternative nonpharmaceutical methods have been trialled first.”
McGowan said all people must be treated with respect and dignity and provided with care in partnership with the patient, their families and their carers.
“I feel strongly it is wrong that we expect our doctors, nurses, social workers to suddenly know how to help a person with intellectual disability when they are in a sensory crisis,” she said.
“We wouldn’t expect them to go out and fix a car if they’ve not been given mechanical training. So why do we expect them to suddenly know how to treat and support our most vulnerable people?
“They simply don’t have the skills to do so right now and it is affecting lives, it costs lives and it costs the quality of life.”
The commission is examining the abuse and neglect of people with a disability. Its latest hearing in Sydney is focused on the use of psychotropic medication to deal with challenging behaviour.
Counsel assisting the commission, Kate Eastman, said it would hear that there had been international concern about the over-prescription of psychotropic drugs for at least 30 years.