Harry Bailey

Harry Richard Bailey (29 October 1922, Picton, New South Wales – 8 September 1985, Mount White, New South Wales) was an Australian psychiatrist and hospital administrator. He bore the primary responsibility for treatment of mental health patients and drug dependent clients via controversial deep sleep therapy and other methods at the Chelmsford Private Hospital in the Sydney North Shore suburb of Pennant Hills where he was its principal. The treatment has been linked with the deaths of a total of 85 patients, including 19 who died by suicide. Bailey died by suicide while he was being investigated.

One of Bailey's celebrity clients was Australian rock and pop singer and songwriter Stevie Wright, who was being treated for methadone addiction, a report that was later part of a 2013 documentary on Australian Story. Another of Bailey's high profile clients was Australian actress and singer Toni Lamond, who documented her stay at Bailey's clinic in her memoirs First Half.

Early life and training Bailey was born in Picton, New South Wales, to Jack Nelson Bailey, a stationmaster and railway officer, and Ruth Kathleen Bailey née Smith. He attended Christian Brothers College, Waverley, then enrolled in science at the University of Sydney in 1940. Unable to complete his studies at the time for financial reasons, he earned extra money by taking a position as a pharmacist's assistant. Then he went back to study medicine at Sydney University, graduating in medicine 1951 and in psychiatry in 1954. He was awarded the Norton Manning memorial prize for psychiatry and the Major Ian Vickery prize for paediatrics.

Medical positions In 1952, Bailey was assistant director of clinical psychiatry for the public health service. Between 1962 and 1979, he served as chief psychiatrist at Chelmsford Private Hospital, Pennant Hills, northwest of Sydney. Under his care, 26 patients died. The last of the deaths occurred in the early hours of 12 August 1977.

Chelmsford investigation

The resultant scandal broke in the early 1980s, following two 60 Minutes programs in 1980 and 1982, and Chelmsford was closed down entirely. In 1985, the "legal and medical investigative machinery finally co-ordinated their actions and Bailey was facing committal proceedings over the death of Miriam Podio in 1977". The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a front group of the Church of Scientology, had been active in publicising the scandal. The government then banned the treatment and instigated stricter guidelines governing the administration and the care of mental patients.