It's not clear how many patients Dr. Ewen Cameron's treatments destroyed, but some families have come forward with stories of what was done to their loved ones. Esther Schrier — who was a nurse at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital — tragically lost her first child at just three weeks of age. The guilt of her baby's deadly staph infection stayed with her, and when she became pregnant with her second, and the CBC says she went into Cameron's care in February of 1960. In theory, he was supposed to help her anxiety, depression, and postpartum depression.
She went into the sleep room.
Pregnant with son Lloyd, Esther was kept in a drug-induced coma in the sleep room for a month, where she lost 13 pounds. On March 10, Cameron's notes read: "She is disoriented as to time only and is probably in her second stage of depatterning. There is no incontinence, there is no mutism, and we are continuing this intense treatment of her until we get complete depatterning."
On March 12, her records show she was considered "depatterned": She could no longer stand, speak, could barely swallow, was incontinent, and required treatment by an obstetrician for severe bleeding. Cameron's work stopped when she gave birth, and Lloyd remembered a broken mother. She had no idea how to boil water, much less care for a child. She very slowly recovered — mostly — and died in 2017. Lloyd has continued to fight for recognition, recompense, and an apology.
