Victoria's psychiatric facilities need urgent reforms after the deaths of 36 mentally ill people within their walls in the past two years, says the state's disabilities watchdog.
The Public Advocate, Colleen Pearce, told the Age that more needs to be done to prevent unexpected, unnatural or violent deaths in the mental health system as well as to ensure grieving families and the public are told why such deaths are occurring.
The Age says there are fresh claims that Anthony Travaglini, 40, who died in a psychiatric ward in September 2008, had been severely mistreated by staff who medicated him despite his deteriorating state.
The Age said a forensic pathologist found Travaglini's death was most likely caused by a combination of drugs in his system.
The director of the Mental Illness Awareness Council, Isabell Collins, said the existing system of oversight into the deaths of Victorians in state-run mental health facilities needs an overhaul.
