Do you have all of these records?
Excerpt from evidence given by a mother to the NSW Inquiry:
"Not only have I pieced together a great deal of exactly what did happen, I had to fight very hard to be given access to my medical records, the court records and other paperwork held by government departments, such as Community Services, refusing to take No for an answer. I have been threatened, bluffed, lied to and empathised with in an effort to delay the inevitable or to side track me. It has cost me thousands of painstaking hours and dollars to discover what the perpetrators and their cohorts would have preferred to keep hidden from me, wanting me to just go away, shut up and drop dead."
It seems that the difficulties we have had in South Australia with obtaining/not obtaining FOI requests, whiteouted copies, incomplete copies, etc have been experienced by both parties over the years in trying to obtain an unadulterated version of their own personal records.
The contempt with which these departments and institutions continue to treat mothers and their adopted children is re-traumatising, as we are treated like dirty rags when we start asking the hard questions.
We are collating all these obstructionist tactics by individuals in the various institutions and would like to hear from mothers and adopted persons who have also had these practices occur when attempting to obtain information under FOI.
