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Harry Bailey




Harry Bailey ( 1925 - September 8 , 1985 ) was an Australian psychiatrist. He bore the primary responsibility for treatment of mental patients via Deep Sleep Therapy , and other methods, at a Sydney mental hospital.

Whereas most of his compatriots who specialized in psychiatry sought out their training wholly in Britain, Bailey (having, according to his biographers Premier Joseph Cahill .

Between 1962 and 1979, Bailey was chief psychiatrist at Chelmsford Private Hospital in Sydney's northwest. Under his care, twenty-six Chelmsford patients died, with only perfunctory investigation by authorities. The last of these deaths, that of Miriam Podio, a telecommunications company employee hospitalized for severe depression, occurred in 1977. (Another twenty-four patients, who actually survived Chelmsford, had suicided by 1990.)

As well as deep sleep therapy - which had been pioneered by British psychiatrist William Sargant - patients underwent massive amounts of involuntary Electroshock , and frequently learned only years afterwards that they had been given it. Bailey also specialized in sexual molestation of female patients. Through this time Bailey and Sargant remained in contact; Bromberger and Fife-Yeomans reported that "Bailey often spoke of the competition between them and Sargant to see who could keep their patients in the deepest coma without killing them."

The resultant scandal broke in the early 1980s, and closed down Chelmsford entirely. A royal commission from 1988 to 1990, headed by Judge , a Scientology -founded organization, had been active in publicizing the Chelmsford patients' sufferings.


REFERENCES

  • ''The New South Wales Royal Commission into Chelmsford Private Hospital'': Available in reference form at the N.S.W. State Library.

  • Bromberger, Brian, and Fife-Yeomans, Janet, Deep Sleep: Harry Bailey and the Scandal of Chelmsford, Simon & Schuster Australia (East Roseville, New South Wales), 1991.

  • Jones, D. Gareth. (March 1990) " Contemporary Medical Scandals: A Challenge to Ethical Codes and Ethical Principles ." ''Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.'' No. 42, pp. 2-14