The Scottish Union of Mental Patients was an organisation first established by mental patients at Hartwood Hospital in July 1971.[1]: 38  27 patients signed a petition to "redress of grievances and better conditions" at the hospital.[1]: 38  This was the first Mental Patients Union to be formed in the UK and predated the Mental Patients' Union founded in London in 1973.[2] It was founded by ,Thomas Ritchie, and Robin Farquharson was also a participant.[3] Unlike many other examples of anti-psychiatry SUMP was based on a sense of solidarity amongst a small group of patients detained in locked wards.[1]

Origins

The idea of a union for inmates of mental hospitals was first posed by Archie Meek, a 91 year old geriatric patient. He made this remark to Thomas Ritchie, another patient who was helping Archie shave at the time.[2] Ritchie was at the time a state patient – a provision under Scottish Law for the indeterminate detention of a mental patient – under which he was detained for 8 years.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Gallacher, Mark. "From mental patient to service user: deinstitutionalisation and the emergence of the Mental Health Service User Movement in Scotland, 1971-2006" (PDF). theses.gla.ac.uk/. Glasgow University. Retrieved 26 July 2017.
  2. 1 2 "Scotland the Brave - User movement roots - by Andrew Roberts". Studymore.org.uk. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
  3. ↑ Spandler, Helen (17 February 2006). Asylum to Action: Paddington Day Hospital, Therapeutic Communities and Beyond. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 9781846424878. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
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