Stephanie Walsh, 1965 - 2007. In loving memory.
IT is two years ago to the day that Stephanie Walsh died after sustained abuse, mistreatment and negligence at the hands of carers at a Sydney Catholic mental hospital.
She had arrived there after passing through several other private and public hospitals. The hospital had been treating her with heavy doses of lithium and regular ECT – Electro-Convulsive Therapy – until she was too confused to function.
Stephanie had rejected her birth assignment as male several years before, and had sought help from the hospital for the depression she was suffering as a result of having lost her daughter, her marriage, her electronics business, her job and her home.
She had a brilliant and creative mind, and had been severely discriminated against in the workplace.
There is no legal protection against discrimination and vilification for Australian intersex people, nor do we have human rights, equality or the right to patient-centred health care. It is little better for people of transsexual background.
Stephanie had a history of brutally savage beatings by her father – a pillar of the Upper North Shore Catholic community – since early childhood. Her nose was severely broken by her father early in her life and remained a long-time legacy until she obtained the funds to have it corrected.
On looking into Stephanie’s death, local police were appalled and firmly believed that an inquest would be instituted into the circumstances of her death.
No such inquest ever occurred – it was mysteriously quashed from on high.
A further medical investigation was thwarted when the specialist primarily responsible for her care refused to attend.
Stephanie’s funeral service was held by her parents without any of her friends being invited. They put on their own independent memorial function instead.
The parents had not had contact with Stephanie for many years, after she had rejected her birth assignment, despite living in the adjacent suburb.
Some months after her burial in the Frenchs Forest cemetery, close friends were horrified, upon visiting her grave site, to discover that it had been opened up and that a second body had been deposited into the same grave.
Investigation revealed that Stephanie’s father had arranged for the body of the wife of one of Stephanie’s adopted brothers, who had committed suicide, to be buried on top of Stephanie.
Her brother’s wife was one of several suicides and disappearances in the family, which apparently has a history not only of physical and psychological violence but of fostering children on behalf of the state children’s welfare service.
An infant they had recently begun caring for was then taken away by the service after a report by a child psychologist who was aware of how Stephanie had been raised.
