Shock Treatment
Little did I know that I was in the Baptist Hospital be given a series of unneeded, unnecessary shock treatments!
P. KENNETH HUGGINS, M. D.
April 30 1974
Mr. Jack Gray _
Orangeburg, S. C. 29115
For Professional Services
Rendered to Ashlyn Gray
Initial inpatient evaluation $55.00
Inpatient psychiatric care (32
days @ $16 per day) 512.00
Electro-shock therapy with anes-
thesia (series of 9 treatments
@ $44 each) 396.00
$963.00
Shock treatments, as described for an article in The News and Courier newspaper by Margaret Salley Harrison who had had more than 100 treatments at different hospitals, are: “My memory is cloudy about some things, but not about the assembly line of stretchers lined up to go into shock. You’d be wheeled into a large room with massive machines and grotesque electrodes. They’d insert a mouth piece, cover my face with oxygen, and strap me down. Then I’d get a shot that put me to sleep… patients are put to sleep, then given a drug which temporarily paralyzes them so they don’t flail about when given the electric jolt and suffer injuries. It was very degrading.”
So it’s not so funny when shock treatments are jokingly described as someone hooked up to jumper cables.
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