About the author – Patrick O’Connor

My name is Patrick O’Connor. Like a million other Australians, I live with severe mental illness. And like most of those people – my people – I also live with other debilitating chronic illnesses.

In 2016, I reached the end of the line when it came to medical treatments in Australia. Based on my condition, statistically, I only had three years to live. My physical conditions were destroying my body, my mental illness was torturing me with extreme psychological distress, and the prescribed medication – well, that was killing me too.

I honestly couldn’t see myself lasting another 12 months, and I shouldn’t have.

Becoming treatment-resistant

Many of the dangerous PBS medications described in this report have been prescribed to me. These medications shorten lives, threaten lives, and can be used to end lives. I know, I have experienced all three.

My life expectancy was comparable to living with a terminal illness, yet I was told that there were no treatments left to try. Doctors described my conditions as ‘treatment resistant’ – but I felt that the doctors in Australia were the ones being resistant to trying new treatments. Faced with the reality that my doctors could offer nothing to save my life, I made the decision to save myself.

I researched new advancements in medicine and continually came to the same outcome: I needed to go to the USA. While I had experienced a negative view of the US healthcare system by many Australian doctors, to me, it offered the best chance at life.

For four years, I travelled to the US every few months for treatments that were not available in Australia.

While not everything worked, I could still see how the treatments were helping others. Many treatments did (and still do) work for me and saved my life – as well as thousands of others in the US every day.

Exploring options

To find the right medical pathway for me, I knocked on the doors of countless medical specialists across America. The whole time, I was tormented with the realisation that unless I could bring these treatments to Australia, my people would continue to suffer and die prematurely. That is what led to this report.

I wrote this report during my battle, not at the end of it. I wanted to provide information to save lives, just in case I wasn’t successful in saving my own. I needed to make sure what you are about to read didn’t die if I died.

I am proud, very proud, that I have been able to play a role in bringing some of the treatments from the US to Australia. A second report will follow this one to explain that journey.

Forming The Killing Zone

Severe mental illness is pure evil. It seeks to destroy everything you love, and when it has done that, it comes back to take your life. It’s a slow death, torturous and horrific. It impacts everyone around you, it has no mercy or compassion and even after it has taken lives it continues to bring pain to family and friends. You cannot co-exist with evil – it has to be killed and that has always been my goal.

Before you read the report there is something deeply personal that I want to share with you. In short, I should be dead. Several years ago, I went through a period when I wasn’t winning. I was suffering on an unimaginable level and I lost my battle. I simply wanted the suffering to end, so I consumed a large quantity of my medication. It was the worst day of my life, but not my last. The next morning, I woke up in my hotel room. Written on the note pad beside my bed were three words: ‘The Killing Zone’. I knew what that meant and what I had to do.

Something happened that night in the period when my body was processing a prescription medication cocktail that should have ended my life. In my heart, I believe that the thousands of ‘my people’ who lost their battles, sent me back to tell our story. That day I opened my laptop and I started to write this report.

A friend once told me that “depression costs people, people”; for me it cost me the women I loved. There was never any fault, and I always knew this was a battle I had to fight alone. They all loved and supported me, yet losing their smiles from my world made me fight harder to stop the same thing happening to others.

I make no apologies for anything contained in this report. I have written this in the same way that I have lived the last eight years – fighting for change and for a better life.

Remembering those we have lost

On one of my visits to the US, I visited a cemetery in a region heavily impacted by the Opioid Crisis. Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people died after seeking help from their doctors, without receiving warning of the risks of the medications prescribed.

While there, I had a brief conversation with a couple about this report. They asked me to publish the names of those who need to be made accountable, no matter the consequences. I hesitated to commit, but they pointed to the recent graves and said, “It’s the only way to stop families having to put names here”.  It was a deeply moving day for me.

I have fulfilled the promise. The report is finished but the fight for change is only just getting started.

Patrick O’Connor, 2020