A Chinese woman was forcibly kept at the St Luke’s Hospital psychiatric unit upon orders from the police as they were preparing for her deportation upon former Police Commissioner George Grech’s direct intervention, according to shocking evidence presented in court recently.
The case, which resurfaced in a Court of Appeal sentence delivered this year, dates back to November 1998, when Yumei Zhang was admitted to St Luke’s Hospital suffering from chest pains, but ended up being locked up at the psychiatric unit against her will.
The court sentence handed down last April by Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano and Judges Joseph Camilleri and Joseph Filletti, uses strong language against health department officials and witnesses summoned by the authorities and slams the St Luke’s administration for using the hospital as a “psychiatric gulag”.
In the original civil case filed by Zhang against the Director of Health, which was decided in 2004, the court heard how Zhang was kept in hospital despite her medical release as she was about to be deported “on fabricated charges”.
Zhang was at the time contesting the health authorities’ claim that she owed Lm2,070 for the treatment she received in hospital between 22 November and 14 December 1998.
The court had decided that Zhang, who also had work permits intermittently and had eventually married a Maltese national, was kept in hospital against her will and hence the Director of Health’s claim that she was not entitled to free medical care did not stand.
Zhang had testified that she stayed for about two weeks in hospital and was then put in the psychiatric unit. When she asked to be released she was told this was not possible as the police wanted to keep her there because they wanted to eventually deport her. In fact, Zhang was arraigned by the police in front of Magistrate Miriam Hayman on the accusations that she was an illegal immigrant but was freed of the charges.
“The state cannot suspend a work permit abusively on the one hand and on the other demand payment for treatment it supposedly gave you,” the 2004 sentence said.
The Director of Health had however appealed against the sentence, insisting that Zhang had to pay for the treatment and rebutting her claims that she was held against her will in the hospital’s psychiatric unit.
Zhang was the target of former police commissioner George Grech’s attacks in the midst of his sex scandal when he was investigated by Magistrate Miriam Hayman in 2001.
Grech had attempted to attack Hayman’s credibility by revealing her close friendship with Zhang, whom he had attempted to deport earlier and was stopped through a court ruling by Magistrate Hayman herself.
In a court protest, Grech had said the two women were seen together on a boat in Gozo after Hayman’s ruling, although he had omitted the fact that the same Zhang was also close to a very good friend of his, and that he had met her privately before deciding to deport her while she was in hospital.
In last April’s sentence, the judges strongly denounced the evidence given by the hospital officials as “incorrect and even, in part, downright false”, besides depositions based on totally incorrect facts, triggering “the court’s unequivocal condemnation”.
In their sentence, the judges said in no uncertain terms that Zhang should not have been kept in hospital beyond the date of her medical recovery.
According to her medical file exhibited in court, it resulted that Zhang was admitted to hospital on 22 November, 1998, and then transferred to the Coronary Care Unit three days later. The file however did not include any entries under “date of discharge” but according to an Emergency Department document she was suffering from “palpitations accompanied by dizziness, nausea”.
Under the entry “clinical notes”, Zhang’s file showed that she was kept for treatment until 26 November, 1998, and an entry dated 24 November speaks of a request for “psychiatric consultation”.
According to a fresh examination undertaken at the Coronary Care Unit on 25 November, the patient was described to be “very fearful of the unknown and tormented by the events that have happened – low in mood as she tries to solve her problems”.
An entry dated 26 November and signed by Dr A. Caruana Galizia states that Zhang “may be transferred from CCU to contact psychiatrist”. Among the notes in the file there is an entry stating that nursing staff had asked for a review “because she mentioned to the security officer that she was suicidal… keep under constant watch”.
Another entry bearing the same date refers explicitly to a “psychiatric review”, adding that “she does not mind being transferred to medical ward or to the psychiatric unit, until the police finish the investigation… From cardiac and medical point of view she is discharged… Dr David Cassar, Consultant Psychiatrist was informed and he advised that she may be transferred to psychiatric unit. Dr J. Saliba, Director of Psychiatry was informed and he gives permission for the patient to be nursed in psychiatric
unit under constant supervision… Dr Rapa, superintendent of St Lukes was informed that the patient can be transferred to psychiatric unit”.
The judges said that in the face of such evidence, it could not understand how the authorities were stating that Zhang was only kept in hospital for a medical investigation and not a psychiatric one.
“The relevant file proves otherwise,” the judges said. “This court hopes that the appellant is not insinuating that the St Luke’s Hospital also serves as a psychiatric ‘gulag’ because if it is true that the patient did not have to be transferred to the psychiatric unit, then she should have never been sent there”.
The judges added that in any case, Zhang received medical treatment until 28 November and not until 14 December, “as falsely stated by the complainant”, even though she was kept locked up in hospital beyond the date of her medical discharge.
For this reason, the court decided that Zhang had to pay for seven day’s hospitalization fees totaling Lm595 – not 28 as claimed by the health authorities – as well as for a lung scan costing Lm150, totaling Lm745.
On the other hand the Director of Health was made to pay the appeals court fees while the fees for the court of first instance had to be shared by complainant and defendant.