Special Series (Part 3 of 3) Up the Line to Goodna: Patient rights and staff fightsSpecial Series (Part 3 of 3) Up the Line to Goodna: Patient rights and staff fights
All In The Mind
As old as the state of Queensland itself, Goodna Mental Hospital became Australia's largest asylum, housing 50,000 people over its lifetime. During a time of major institutional and cultural upheaval, the Office of the Patient's Friend opened its doors in 1977, the first patient advocacy service to operate within the confines of an Australian psychiatric hospital. Part advocate, part whistle-blower - running the service has taken a might of steel and a heart of gold. 30 years later, Nadia Beer only recently retired from the role.
29:28•31 Jul 2010
Patient Rights and Staff Fights Inside Queensland’s Biggest Asylum
Episode Overview
- Patient advocacy inside Goodna began in 1977 with the Office of the Patient’s Friend, giving detained people a place to voice concerns and seek support.
- Staff culture mixed genuine care with violence, defensiveness and union battles, creating tension between protecting patients and protecting colleagues.
- Restraint, seclusion and involuntary treatments were justified as safety measures but often experienced by patients as punishment and deep humiliation.
- Small changes such as petitions, flexible bedtimes, control over money and simple choices like milk and sugar became important symbols of dignity.
- Deinstitutionalisation improved rights and treatments for some, yet left others struggling in a hostile community with too little structured support.
“Advocacy comes at a personal cost to the advocate.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction, trauma and institutionalisation inside psychiatric hospitals? This episode heads into Queensland’s notorious Goodna asylum and focuses on the birth of patient advocacy behind locked doors. Host Natasha Mitchell brings together voices that rarely sit side by side: curator Joe Besley, long‑time patient advocate and psychologist Nadia Beer, nurse and union leader Dennis Manning, historian Mark Fennane, and former patients including Joy Enkelmeyer and Trish Pascoe.
Through their stories, you’ll hear about straightjackets, seclusion cells, early electroconvulsive therapy without anaesthetic, and everyday indignities like censored letters, controlled bedtimes and being denied a simple cup of tea the way you like it. The heart of the episode is the "Office of the Patient’s Friend", founded in 1977 inside the hospital. Nadia and Dennis describe trying to protect people who had almost no power, while also facing hostility from colleagues who saw them as spies and traitors.
They talk about assaults, sexual abuse allegations, the fear of repercussions if patients spoke up, and the emotional toll of standing beside people who are frightened, medicated against their will, or shut in seclusion for kicking down a door after being refused a phone call.
You’ll also hear how small acts – allowing patients to finish a film, serving milk and sugar separately, fighting for someone to carry a bit of money in their pocket – became symbols of dignity and choice in a place built on control. The episode finishes by weighing up deinstitutionalisation: better treatments and rights on one hand, but isolation and lack of support for some on the other.
Anyone interested in mental health care, trauma, addiction, staff culture or human rights will find plenty to think about here – and might be left wondering what real patient‑centred care should look like now.
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