The Hospital: How I Survived the Secret Child Experiments at Aston Hall

by Barbara O'Hare

Overview

"We were an experiment. We had no rights, no love, nothing. Just a piece of meat for someone to play with."

Barbara O'Hare was just 12 years old when she was admitted to Aston Hall mental institution in Derbyshire. From a troubled home, she'd hoped the hospital would offer some kind of protection from all that was wrong in the world, but within hours of being there Barbara was tied down, drugged, with sodium amytl—a truth telling drug that forces a person to lose all inhibitions—and then, she believes, abused by its head physician, Dr Kenneth Milner. The drug experimentation and abuse continued throughout her eight month stay in 1971, damaging her for life mentally and physically, and setting her on a trajectory of distress throughout the rest of her life. But somehow Barbara clung on to a grain of inner strength and eventually found herself heading up one of the biggest battles of her life; telling the world the truth about Aston Hall, setting up a support group and seeking answers and justice on behalf of potentially hundreds of victims. Told with all the tenacity and passion her fellow survivors have come to love Barbara for, The Hospital is a shocking account of just how easily vulnerable and forgotten children were preyed upon by the doctor entrusted with their care and why it must never be allowed to happen again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911274636
Publisher:	Bonnier Books UK
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Barbara O'Hare was just 12-years-old when she was admitted to Aston Hall mental institution in Derbyshire.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 The Tinker's Daughter 3

2 The Party 20

3 The Doll 39

4 The Lost Children 49

5 The Doctor 67

6 Out of Sight, Out of Mind 81

7 The Hospital 100

8 Human Guinea Pigs 116

9 The Queen of Farts 137

10 Tears and Toothbrushes 143

11 The Night Has a Thousand Eyes 156

12 The Hospital School 162

13 Bodies 173

14 The Visit 187

15 Midnight Feast 201

16 The Mouse 209

17 The Silent Rage 220

18 Fighting Back 232

19 Telling Someone 245

20 Escaping the Terror 259

21 The Approved School 266

22 Baths and Broken Glass 281

23 Marmaduke 291

24 The Letter 301

25 Going Back 316

26 The Fight of My Life 321

27 True Survivor 328

Afterword 336

Acknowledgements 342