Hospitalized and traumatised at Maudsley hospital where Maudsley  developed racist ideas that I was inferior, leading to being diagnosed  with schizophrenia and sectioned. There, I personally experienced the deeply ingrained legacy of Henry Maudsley's theories on race, echoing through restorative practices: restraint, ECT, overt abuse, and discriminatory treatments. 

Henry Maudsley, the man for whom the hospital is named, was known for his eugenic theories alongside Galton, Darwin and Freud. He advanced the belief that mental deficiencies were endemic to certain races, classes and homosexuals.  Assumptions that played into the racial biases of modern psychiatry and psychology. Assumptions that had lead to death of Bennett, Rigg and Olaseni Lewis.

The Mental Health Reform Bill 2022, found that Black people are eleven times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, five times more likely than White people to be detained under the Mental Health Act. Furthermore, Black patients were 29% more than white patients to be forcibly restrained in the mental health settings. In these alarming statistics, we see the lingering echo of Maudsley's unjust theories in the misdiagnosis and constraint of black communities.

Renaming Maudsley Hospital in London is a crucial step in reclaiming the narrative of 'race freedom', towards eradicating the legacy of these racist theories, a step towards redressing racial disparity in our mental health system. Let's sever this tie to our unjust past. I ask you to support this call for change. Please, sign this petition and encourage others to do the same to affect a systemic change in challenging racism in mental health.