3 h. ago ‘In the world of psychiatry, all your certainties are shattered’: has cinema’s champion of kindness run out of patience?

Nicolas Philibert completes his triptych of films about mental health centres with a documentary about where patients go on their darkest daysLaurence is a woman in desperate need of an act of human kindness. A hug, a cuddle: that is all she needs to keep at bay the nightmarish visions that haunt her day and night, the grey-haired patient urges her psychiatrist, words pressed through a clenched jaw, eyes bulging in panic. Yet on her ward at the Esquirol hospital centre in Paris, such simple gestures are impossible to come by. “When I asked for a hug,” Laurence laments, “they gave me a jar of yoghurt.”This scene, from Nicolas Philibert’s new documentary At Averroès & Rosa Parks, is as hard to watch as anything you are likely to see on a cinema screen this year. But it is especially remarkable coming from perhaps the world’s pre-eminent maker of humanist documentaries. The Frenchman Philibert is one of modern cinema’s great champions of kindness. Aged 74, he has built a career mak...

Politics

4 h. ago The Sleep Room by Jon Stock review – the psychiatrist who abused female patients

This harrowing account of a British doctor and his shocking experiments on young women includes a testimony from the actor Celia Imrie, who was one of his patientsIn a hospital in Waterloo, London, in the mid-1960s was a psychiatric ward full of sleeping women. Suffering from disorders ranging from post-partum depression to chronic anxiety to anorexia, the residents of the “sleep room” were sedated and woken only to be washed, fed or subjected to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). All were under the supervision of psychiatrist William Sargant, who at the time was hailed as a pioneer. Sargant claimed that a combination of enforced narcosis and ECT could fix disturbed minds. Failing that, the treatment would be surgical lobotomy.The Sleep Room is author Jon Stock’s gripping account of a scandal in which female patients were denied dignity and agency by a man who wielded absolute power over their bodies. The book is ably narrated by actors Richard Armitage, Antonia Beamish and Celia Imri...

Science

7 h. ago Dad 'destroyed' as newborn 'killed by young boy loose on hospital ward'

The youngster was said to have been unsupervised and 'disruptive' when little Zayneb-Cassandra died.

Events

8 h. ago Dad's agony after baby 'killed by boy, 6, loose on ward' as family blast hospital

Mohamed-Hamza, 23, said he broke down in tears when he heard that his newborn daughter Zayneb-Cassandra had allegedly been dropped on the floor by an unsupervised six-year-old boy

Events

25 h. ago Parents deny killing newborn baby found beaten to death on hospital ward

Brendon Staddon suffered injuries to his head, neck, legs and jaw on March 5 last year.

Events

27 h. ago Newborn found beaten to death on baby hospital ward as parents deny killing him

Parents Daniel Gunter, 27, and Sophie Staddon, 23, are accused of killing their tiny son Brendon Staddon at Yeovil District Hospital in Somerset on March 5 last year

Events

27 h. ago Boy 'kills newborn baby while roaming hospital maternity ward'

The boy 'treated her like a doll' and dropped her on the floor of a hospital's maternity unit, with a criminal investigation under way.

Events

30 h. ago Boy, six, 'kills newborn baby on maternity ward after he was allowed to roam hospital, despite complaints from patients'

A baby identified as Zayneb-Cassandra - who was born premature, at 7.5 months, to a 23-year-old woman, earlier this month - was declared dead on Tuesday.

Events

30 h. ago Boy, 6, 'kills newborn baby after being left to explore maternity ward at hospital'

A criminal probe has been launched in France after a baby girl was allegedly killed by a boy, 6, who was 'left to roam around a maternity unit' in a horror incident

Events

30 h. ago Boy, 6, 'kills newborn baby girl after being found roaming hospital's maternity ward'

The baby suffered a traumatic brain injury after allegedly being dropped on the floor

Events

8 d. ago Newborn baby died after mother was left to give birth alone on NHS hospital ward by midwives and doctors, inquest told

Liliwen Iris Thomas was born at the University of Wales Hospital but died just hours later after her mother's cries for help were ignored during labour.

Events

1 week ago ‘They’re skin and bones’: doctors in Gaza warn babies at risk of death from lack of formula

Doctors say Israel is blocking deliveries of formula urgently needed as mothers are either dead or too malnourished to feed their babiesDoctors in Gaza have warned that hundreds of babies are at risk of death amid a critical shortage of baby milk, as Israel continues to restrict the humanitarian aid that can enter the beleaguered strip.Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the head of paediatrics at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said his ward had only about a week’s worth of infant formula remaining. The doctor has already run out of specialised formula meant for premature babies and is forced to use regular formula, rationing it between the infants under his care. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Ayrshire hospital ward forced to close amid concerns over patients and staff

The ward has seen an increase in incidences of violence.

Science