Tuesday, June 05, 2007

A Sane Man

A Sunday supplement magazine, published in March this year, on Mental Health fell into my mail slot. As tired as I was on Sunday afternoon I read it cover to cover. It is through this magazine I learned about the ground breaking work and compassionate approach of Dr. Rufus May, a young Clinical Psychologist and former psychiatric patient. There are many articles written by him on the Internet, a number of interviews too. And within all of what he describes, he retains a sense of humour. This publicity stunt reflect that.

August 2006: As a teenager with schizophrenia he saw the mental health system brutalise patients. He became a doctor to change things from within. Now he is pushing a bed from London to Brighton.

Dr Rufus May and a group of fellow campaigners will tomorrow start pushing a bed from Brighton to London to raise awareness of the forced use of drugs and ECT in psychiatric hospitals. The bed, complete with a dummy patient, will be chased by a giant syringe. There will also be an ECT machine offering free "treatments" to the general public.