Name Paul Beale
Hometown Heretaunga Hastings
Age when entered care 10 years old
Year of birth 1951
Time in care 1961–2012
Type of care facility Hospital – the Kimberley Centre in Taitoko Levin; residential home – Parklands in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Whānau background Paul has a sister, Gay, who is now his welfare guardian.
Current Paul lives at a residential whānau home, where he enjoys a range of activities and a good quality of life.

“His body still carries the scars”
– Gay Rowe on Paul Beale (Paul’s sister)

My brother Paul was diagnosed with an intellectual disability at 2 ½ years old. I’m his sister and welfare guardian. He functions intellectually at a very basic level and his vocabulary and decision-making are quite limited. He has little awareness of physical danger.

After attending the local IHC Fairhaven School, it was suggested that Paul attend Kimberley Hospital where he would receive an education. At 10 years old, Paul was taken to Kimberley, where he spent more than 40 years. As a child, I would sometimes visit with my parents and, during school holidays, Paul would come home to Hastings.

When we visited Paul, he was in a ward with what seemed like about 50 others but could have been as few as 30. They were all males and they slept in dormitory-type accommodation.

At mealtimes, others around Paul would grab his food if it was not eaten quickly. The assistants stood around watching. Later, Paul was diagnosed as a ‘choker’ because he just swallowed his food so no-one else could get it.

Each time he came home, he had a new scar somewhere on his body. We were told this was from ‘fighting’. There were fights going on all the time at Kimberley and the attendants only stepped in when they were not going to get injured. His body still carries the scars from there.

Sometimes the residents were very roughly handled by the attendants. I pleaded for my parents to take Paul out of there. After getting married, I even offered to look after him in my own home. Sadly, my pleas fell on deaf ears.

As an adult, I would take Paul out to lunch and then to the park where he could go on the swings. On one visit, I noticed a young man sitting on a chair with restraints on his wrists and legs. I was shocked and when I asked why, I was told he was a runner. This didn’t make sense to me as the door to the outside yard was locked anyway. There were about a dozen young men in there with special needs, and only two assistants to look after them.

As Paul got older, he was moved from one ward to another, supposedly to be with like folk. He was given drugs that made him like a zombie – he just sat and only spoke when spoken to. I suspect the drugs were given to the residents to keep them quiet.

One of the side effects of the medication was dribbling. In 2002 or 2003, I collected Paul to take him to my home in Onewhero for a week. He was drugged up so much, we had to change his t-shirt at least eight times a day to prevent him from being wet all the time. After that, I asked if the meds that were causing him to dribble and his neck muscles to atrophy could be replaced with something that was a bit kinder to his body.

My parents had been told that he needed them because he had seizures. However, Paul had witnessed another resident having seizures and then getting a lot of attention and care, so he began to lie on the ground and shake. Those around him thought he was suffering a seizure. I have only witnessed him having a true seizure once while at home on holiday, and he has not had a seizure since leaving Kimberley.

Paul moved to Parklands in May 2005 and stayed there until September 2012.

His welfare was entrusted to me by our late parents and I have always done my best to look out for his interests and to ensure he is treated with appropriate care. After having a look around, Parklands appeared to be everything we wanted, and Paul liked it too, which was very important to me.

Everything went well at Parklands for the first 18 months or so, but after that the cracks began to show. Paul had a terrible time.

We were told that Parklands was supposed to be getting most of his benefit to go towards his cost of living. I was very unhappy about this because, in my view, the money the proprietors were already getting for Paul, which was significant, was sufficient.

The proprietors didn’t properly account to me for monthly expenditure, and it seemed quite expensive – so I started to ask questions. Paul was not adequately fed, and his account would be charged for food purchased on day trips. I became aware towards the end of Paul’s time at Parklands that his diet was bland and monotonous.

Poor attention was paid to Paul’s personal hygiene. He wet the bed virtually every night – the response was to remove his mattress, so that he had to sleep on a thin, plastic-covered foam squab, much like a hospital one. There were no springs or support for Paul who had had a hip joint replacement.

When I asked what had happened to Paul’s regular mattress, I was told he had wet it so much it stank, and staff had taken it down to the paddock and burned it. There was no consultation about this.

I found this particularly frustrating because I had provided Parklands with mattress protectors for this reason. As Paul doesn’t have the capacity to look after his teeth properly, I also sent a battery-run toothbrush to Parklands, which wasn’t used.

On more than one occasion the owners’ dogs urinated and defecated on the carpet in Paul’s room so the carpet was removed. Residents were also made to pick up dog faeces from the yard each morning.

The owners shouted at residents, and removed personal items to punish them, despite the fact that they were all people with disabilities. A staff member squirted Paul with water whenever he was perceived to be becoming loud or aggressive. This was deliberate exploitation of a very genuine fear Paul has of water.

Paul was also assaulted at Parklands, both by staff and other residents. He started to have unexplained injuries, despite not having a history of clumsiness. Staff told me ‘off the record’ that Paul’s injuries were the result of him being regularly assaulted by other residents.

In April 2006, Paul’s medical records show that he presented at the local medical clinic with a fracture. The next month, he had severe bruising on his left upper arm. In October 2006, he fell over and hurt his shoulder. Another record of that incident stated that Paul had ‘somehow’ managed to sustain the injury. Much later, I saw handwritten notes recording that Paul had been kicked and punched by other residents, but no incident reports had been prepared.

In March 2008, Paul was assaulted by another resident, resulting in a head injury. The ambulance officer confirmed that Paul had a bleeding head and ear, and scratching and bruising to his right arm. The next day, I took Paul to my doctor to get him checked over thoroughly. They observed that the arm injury was on top of another injury we had not been informed about.

About a month later, Paul complained to a staff member that his right leg was sore, and he seemed to be limping. Three days later, another staff member phoned to say that his foot was sore, red and swollen. His foot was x-rayed and displayed fractures. I was told by a nurse that this type of injury was likely to have come from somebody standing on Paul’s foot. When I told two staff members at Parklands, they said Paul had been assaulted by another resident while he was in his bedroom.

I was informed that, as a result of this, Paul was, in addition to being sedated, now locked in his room at night. This was a safety concern given the number of evening staff rostered on. I was also very unhappy about how Paul’s medication was managed. As Paul’s welfare guardian, I was supposed to approve any sedative medication. However, he was routinely sedated without my consent.

In April 2009, Paul was at the medical centre again. This time, the records stated that he fell in the bath and bashed his forehead. He presented twice at the medical centre in 2010. On the first occasion, his records stated that he slipped on a step and grazed his lower leg, which became infected. The second time, he was described as having an infection from a scratched arm.

In May 2010, another record described Paul as having an “unwitnessed fall”, which again resulted in a fracture. In October 2010, he was scratched on the head by another resident and, in 2011, an incident report stated that he had been bitten on the cheek by another resident. On one occasion, I took Paul to hospital. His shirt was lifted and he had a massive bruise on the side of his ribs, which nobody was able to explain.

I continually tried to take steps to protect Paul and to stand up for his rights. In 2006, I contacted the police about a staff member who had assaulted Paul. This eventuated in a court case. The staff member was charged with assault and she was asked to leave Parklands.

In making a legal claim against the Ministry of Health for the abuse and neglect suffered by Paul, it also came to light that he had been sexually assaulted by two Parklands staff members.

I regularly voiced my concerns regarding the poor quality of residential care and requested the opportunity to explore alternative options for Paul. In April 2008, attempts finally began to be made to find an alternative placement for Paul. However, he remained at Parklands until late 2012.

Paul was moved and continues to reside at a residential whānau home. From there he attends activities, including going on twice weekly walks, movie visits, one-on-one walks and attending whare lunches and picnics. His quality of life is significantly better than it was at Parklands.[54]

Footnotes