A Co Donegal woman continued to be wrongly detained in a psychiatric hospital where she had been held down by staff and forcibly injected until she fell unconscious, it was claimed at the High Court yesterday.
The allegations were made by the woman's brother before Mr Justice Smyth. The matter was before the judge on foot of a High Court order, made last Friday, directing an inquiry into the legality of the woman's detention at St Conall's psychiatric hospital, Letterkenny.
During Friday's hearing, the woman's brother claimed she had been removed from her home on foot of an illegal detention order signed by a doctor who was a relative of her estranged husband and by another man who had no psychiatric qualifications.
After the woman was committed, the husband had broken a protection order and moved back into the family home, the brother claimed.
The woman was present in court yesterday. Mr James O'Reilly SC, for the North Western Health Board, said a certificate regarding the basis of the woman's detention had been drawn up.
The woman's brother said there was nothing wrong with his sister and she was being held illegally under an illegally prepared document. He said her detention was at the behest of her "abusive and estranged" husband.
Mr O'Reilly said the NWHB would disagree with what had been represented by the brother. He said the woman had come to the attention of the medical authorities in Co Donegal before and the order for her committal was made.
Mr Justice Smyth said that if the woman should not be in the hospital, the sooner she was freed, the better. If what had been said in court was correct, the matter should not be delayed any longer than it had to.
The judge said he would direct the woman be again produced in court tomorrow.