Television Award: Duty of Care, Four Corners, ABC Television
Winner: Duty of Care, Four Corners, ABC Television - Andrew Fowler (reporter), Anne Connolly (producer), Sarah Curnow and Jo Puccini (researchers)
About this winner
- Year: 2002
- Level: Winner
- Award category: Media award
About the 2002 nomination
Winner: Duty of Care, Four Corners, ABC Television - Andrew Fowler (reporter), Anne Connolly (producer), Sarah Curnow and Jo Puccini (researchers)
Duty of Care examined the well-intentioned social reform of opening the doors of big institutions and the dramatic lack of subsequent community-based support to help mentally ill people released from those institutions to live in the wider community.
The program illustrated how this shift has resulted in sometimes tragic results. Interviews with grieving families of young people who had taken their own lives after being refused an acute care bed, or after absconding from an understaffed ward, were shown. Professionals told of how they were forced to take dangerous gambles, ejecting seriously ill people from hospital to make beds available for new arrivals. Families conveyed the enormous stress as they battled to keep their loved ones living, with minimal backup.
The judges thought the program was comprehensive and well-researched exposing the mental health system in New South Wales as one which has failed people with mental illness.
About the Human Rights Awards
The Australian Human Rights Awards is an inspirational showcase of the best in all of us. The Awards honour and celebrate diverse human rights heroes and significant achievements in protecting and promoting human rights in Australia.