According to the National Institute of Health, "deep sleep was toxic coma for two to eight weeks in patients with intractable psychiatric conditions; about 40 deaths were associated with the treatment".
[1] Bailey committed suicide in September 1985 in response to the ongoing media exposure of his practices, as well as disquiet from among the ranks of other health professionals.
It might "sheet home to doctors, public servants and the various medical boards the consequences of what at worst has been a cover-up, and at best has been an exercise in negligence and incompetence.
"[5]The DST was Bailey's invention, a cocktail of barbiturates to put patients into a coma lasting up to 39 days, while also administering electro-convulsive therapy (ECT).
Bailey likened the treatment to switching off a television; his self-developed theory was that the brain, by shutting down for an extended period, would "unlearn" habits that led to depression, addiction and other psychiatric conditions.
A Victorian private psychiatric hospital which was associated with a quasi religious sect, Newhaven, "specialised in the use of LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), Deep Sleep Therapy and ECT.