Welcome to the Podcast Series, Remembering Randall, in honour of my brother who almost 42 years ago chose suicide over the prospect of being returned to Wolston Park Mental Hospital, where he had previously  been an involuntary patient for 18 months.

This podcast series is not only in his honour but of the 1000s like him whose lives were destroyed by their treatment at Wolston Park Mental Hospital.

Wolston Park Hospital was erected at Wacol in the mid 19^th century. Over 155 years in excess of 50,000 inmates were confined in that sprawling institution, most involuntarily.  Wolston Park was a site of immense historical human rights abuses that remain hidden behind closed archives, protected by legislation designed to protect the institution. Meanwhile the trauma of former patients and their relatives remains privatised.

Wolston Park Mental Hospital had its own morgue, three cemeteries, around 2800 deaths unaccounted for. The institution detained many who were not mentally ill, including homosexual men like my brother, young girls, state wards, unwanted wives, returned service men with PTSD and children and adults with disabilities.

Patients in Wolston Park Patients were subject to chemical restraints, experimental psychotic drugs, shock treatment without anaesthetic, straight jackets, beatings, strangulation with towels, solitary confinement and sexual assault.

The Qld government owes it to people abused in #Wolston Park Mental Hospital to investigate what happened there and why. Listen to the podcast series Remembering Randall and make up your own mind.

Finally if you have a story, break the silence, contact me: [email protected]

This series interviews historians, criminologists, curators, former staff and patients, former CEO of Qld Mental Health Commission, and others convinced it is time that Qld had an inquiry into the atrocities at Wolston Park Mental Hospital.

Credits:

Music: ‘Epic’ by Michael Lerm, Licence from Jamendo

Website: design and development

Manuel Gutierrez