Alice Cheong

Frankly speaking, reading about the court in St. Paul, Minnesota authorising electroshock treatment as therapy for certain mental illness on a certain person, brings about repulsion. Shouldn’t such treatment be conducted on voluntary basis?

So, what is this electroshock treatment? It is usually termed as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which is medically approved for depression treatment. This treatment uses electricity to induce seizure on a patient which is under general anesthesia. Medically, it is touted to be a safe and effective method.

Short term memory lost, and difficulties remember events from the time during and around the ECT treatment to confusion immediately after treatment is benignly termed as adverse effects.

Quoting ST, “‘It’s not torture,’ said Dr William McDonald, a psychiatry professor at Emory University who chairs an American Psychiatric Association committee on ECT.”

Two questions for all the advocates of forced treatment: Would they be willing to be forced to undergoing this safe treatment in a double-blinded study? Yes? No? Do the scientific community understood when and what makes the treatment works and when it doesn’t? If no, why should the court orders a person to take the risk of a treatment which may not work on him or her?

The EOGM is over, and reins of AWARE has been handed back to the old guards. However, the AWARE affair is far from over.

A number of issues are in hand.

1) The $90k spent in 5 weeks by the ousted exco is over the $20k upper limit of what the exco is authorised to spend in a month. This issue will have to be solved and accounted for. In NGO, every cents count.

2) The influx of roughly 3k new members, where some are unfamiliar with AWARE. How are these 3k new members going to be integrated into AWARE? Many have abilities, and are willing to contribute. How is AWARE going to tap into their expertise?

3) There is 761 members who voted against the old guards. How is AWARE going to engage them? Will them lay hibernating, and perhaps strike again in future? Will they actively makes life difficult for AWARE to carried out activities? Or will they contribute in their own way to AWARE?

With the take-over and ousting, trust was lost. and 2 camps are formed, where each camp is united. The old guards got back their association, and perhaps the other camp can consider setting up their own association too. The 2 camps obviously have different ideas on association management, public relations, democracy, and target group of people their will like to assist.