Nurses at Porirua Hospital were given training in Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) in 1956 in what was a new and somewhat experimental treatment for mental illness.

More than 200 people were given the controversial treatment Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) in 2015 – five of them after refusing consent.

The treatment – brutally depicted in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – has been considered as a "last resort" in the treatment of severe depression, catatonia and mania.

ECT involves giving a brief electrical pulse to a patient's brain to produce a seizure. That pulse forces an almost re-booting of the brain, triggering changes in its chemistry and providing the patient with relief for four to six weeks.

C MACKENZIE/SUPPLIED Hastings woman Anna Natusch worked at Lake Alice Hospital in 1976 and saw Electroconvulsive Therapy performed on children there. She says they became "like punch-drunk boxers". Natusch had ECT herself in 1981. She did not give her consent. She's pictured with her dog, Liberty, in a photo taken from a book she's written about her experiences, Battle Against the Rulers of Darkness.

A Wellington psychiatrist insists it can "relieve enormous suffering" and be "life-saving".

Figures provided in the Office of the Director of Mental Health annual report for 2015 reveal that in total 2295 treatments were administered nationwide that year.

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Of the 225 patients given ECT in 2015, 66 received it despite not having the capacity to consent to it. Another five, who had the capacity to consent but refused the treatment, were given it against their will. They were three people in Waikato, and one each in Bay of Plenty and Waitemata DHBs.

In the Capital & Coast and Hutt Valley District Health Boards' catchment areas, 16 patients were given ECT last year – the treatment administered more than 140 times in total. In Wairarapa one person was treated five times

Under the Mental Health Act, a patient must consent to a treatment themselves or a second opinion from a psychiatrist appointed by the Mental Health Review Tribunal is required. In those cases, the psychiatrist must consider it to be "in the interests of the person".

Consulting psychiatrist Dr John Lambe is the coordinator of the Wellington region's ECT programme. He said the controversial treatment had a 70 per cent success rate – so effective that, in some cases, patients asked for repeat procedures.

"A lot of the movies have depicted ECT as applied in a rather unfortunate manner, which is completely different from how it is applied now," Lambe said.

"Sometimes, clients who have had ECT, they even ask for it again ... it relieves suffering for people who are suffering enormous distress which is often not visible."

Unlike Hollywood movies, the treatment was now given to patients under general anaesthetic and after a muscle relaxant had been administered.

"Once they are fully asleep and the muscle relaxant is fully active, then the seizure is applied and it lasts less than a minute. The anaesthetic agents and muscle relaxants wear off very quickly and after the seizure, the patients are waking up around five minutes later," Lambe said.

A review of ECT's use in New Zealand was carried out in 2003. It found that ECT "continues to have a place as a treatment option" and that banning it "would deprive some seriously ill people of a potentially effective and sometimes life-saving means of treatment".

'TO THIS DAY THE FEAR RULES MY LIFE'

A teacher at the former Lake Alice Hospital near Whanganui has rejected claims ECT is safe, saying she would like to see the treatment outlawed.

"You knock out good areas of the brain as well as the problem area," Anna Natusch said on Sunday.

Natusch, who now lives in Hastings, worked as a teacher at Lake Alice in 1976 and saw children after they received ECT treatments.

"They were like punch-drunk boxers."

Natusch was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and in 1981 was admitted to hospital in Porirua, at age 32.

She received three rounds of ECT under anaesthetic, and said she did not give consent.

"These treatments ... I shall never forget, and to this day the fear rules my life," she said.

"They phoned my parents and panicked them and told them if I didn't have it I would never be right ever again."

Natusch has just written a memoir, Battle Against the Rulers of Darkness, which details her work at Lake Alice and her own health struggles.

"I wasn't a mental case when I went in but by the end of it I reckon I was certifiable. I was mad."

She describes ECT as "sledgehammer tactics".

"Why use a sledgehammer when, metaphorically, a toothpick will do?"

She said the treatments made her sensitive to electricity, and said she lived in a tent for a year to escape the static shocks.

Natusch acknowledged the treatment was less "barbarous" now as patients are anaesthetised, but still felt it was too much of a gamble.

"There's sometimes some that do have a miraculous recovery, but you're more likely to end up in a fiasco. People keep coming back and they end up like a zombie."

After years of psychiatric therapy under Auckland clinical psychologist Dr Ingo Lambrecht, Natusch said she had made a miraculous recovery, but still tired easily and felt affected by electricity.

"I feel very strongly that you have got to work through what the problems are and it can take years of psychotherapy, but it may have taken years and years to get like that, but if you have patience and a good therapist you can achieve amazing things."

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) in 2015

BY THE NUMBERS

Capital & Coast DHB

Number of people treated with ECT: 12 (130 treatments in total)

Number of people given ECT who did not have the capacity to consent: 4

Number of administrations not able to be consented to: 38

Number of people given ECT who had capacity but refused consent: 0

Hutt Valley DHB

Number of people treated with ECT: 4 (18 treatments in total)

Number of people given ECT who did not have the capacity to consent: 3

Number of administrations not able to be consented to: 3

Number of people given ECT who had capacity but refused consent: 0

New Zealand

Number of people treated with ECT: 225 (2295 treatments in total)

Number of people given ECT who did not have the capacity to consent: 66

Number of administrations not able to be consented to: 576

Number of people given ECT who had capacity but refused consent: 5

Source: Office of the Director of Mental Health annual report 2015