Autism
In Photo: Autistic children take part in the Horse Therapy Special Children program in Bangkok June 17, 2014 Reuters

A young Australian man named James suffered from severe autism. The autistic man had been chained to a hospital bed for a span of 14 days, and his parents claimed that the healthcares authorities had ignored to help support them.

According to the Daily Mail, James, at the age of two, was diagnosed with autism. He also suffered from high anxiety and trauma. Bronwyn Pascoe, James' mother, said that for years, caregivers had ignored his needs.

She said that she and her husband, Allan, had made calls to the Victorian Department of Human Services about the ignorance towards their son. She added that James was arrested by police at his accommodation centre. He was taken to the Northern Hospital in Epping where he was chained for a span of 14 days.

Because James was acting out at a care centre, on Nov. 21, he was taken to a hospital. It was reported that though calling the police was an option that the Department of Human Services used, it was not the only one that they used. The other tactics that could be used in such circumstances include dimming lights and withdrawing from the room.

For 14 days, James was strapped down and was given high doses of drugs in Northern Hospital so that he would not escape. Pascoe said that James was a prisoner in the room and wasn't allowed to go out because the hospital couldn't risk it. She added that prisoners got treated better and that it wasn't James' choice to be autistic.

James' grandmother was someone who he adored, but when James was 16 years old, she died from pancreatic cancer. Pascoe said that after her mother passed away, James did not cope with it well and became depressed and obsessed about the fact that people died. She added that he had started showing outbursts of behaviour. She also said that James' sister, Jacinta, had died when she was barely two months old and the loss of both, his grandmother and sister, made him feel haunted and that developed into a trauma for him.

The Pascoe family wanted to have help in their home so that they could work with him. Pascoe said that they would have provided him therapy so that he would be able to deal with both, anxiety and anger. The parents tried to control his outbursts but in vain. Because his behaviour got worse, the parents called the police.

Pascoe explained that he refused to go to the hospital in an ambulance because he was scared he would die as he thought that everyone who was taken that way died. For over two years, James had been shackled and sedated as well as taken in and out of respite houses, care facilities and the hospital, but no treatment plan helped him.