Good news. My partner has just told me on the phone, that after 13 nights staying on chairs, that she has been given a room with a bed. I’m sure the staff could have engaged with sooner and more sympathetically to come to a resolution before now, so I’m still sending the letters to the hospital managers regarding their crappy service. Hopefully she get at least a full week of proper rest and recuperation before returning home. #mentalhealth #letters #cat
31st July 2014
Dear Sir / Madam
Re. J__ inpatient, Bosworth Ward
I have held off writing until now because I was originally under the impression that my partner’s mental health advocate had written you a letter about her circumstances on Bosworth Ward. Prior to this I had assumed that messages had been passed upwards by staff on her ward, at least passed to the unit co-ordinators who would effect real change to her temporary circumstances.
On Saturday 19th July she was admitted to the Bradgate whilst still recovering from a massive overdose, mentally and physically exhausted (the last time I had seen her was on oxygen with drips and monitors). She had been told that she was lucky that a local bed had been found. It was also mentioned that several wards were not taking on patients due to rain damage, which is mockery of all the money spent on building and repairs in recent years (I know this because of disruption in two of my partner’s previous stays, and complacent comments in letters from the Trust). I am still pretty angry about the patients’ kitchen being locked on Ashby Ward with no drinking fountain for a month due to unfinished repairs, risk and a disgraceful internal squabble over finances.
She was admitted to Bosworth Ward, and eventually adapted to the idea that there would be no continuity with her previous stay on Ashby Ward. She accepted that she wouldn’t be going back to Ashby Ward. After her much disrupted stay for 8 months on Ashby Ward and a rushed return home, apparently it’s quite common to “bounce back” in terms of recovery, and yet this continuity was not acknowledged. The wards back on to each other, perhaps a visit or chat with familiar staff might have helped. As per usual, it took several days for her drugs to match her prescription, not to mention being made to beg for PRN meds. But all this is to be expected because admissions to wards at the Bradgate have always been amateur (fix the computers, sort of the phamacy) and God help the patients who arrive just before the weekend, because any special requests or problem solving may as well be ignored until the consultant is back the follow week.
Tonight will be the 13th night since admission that she has not slept in a bed (the last bed she slept in was at the LRI). Why is this? She was assigned a bed on a dormitory and has repeatedly explained in a panicked near-phobic way that she cannot sleep in dormitory due to her history - which naturally is part and parcel of her condition. She has depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and OCD amongst other things and yet no concession has been made that staying in a dorm might be counter-productive with regards to her recuperation. I see and hear of this all the time on the wards, unnecessary and avoidable situations which trigger and aggravate already upset people - one example is the lack of staff for escorted leave.
She was told yesterday in ward round that they will let her go home in a week’s time. So far that means for more than half of her ward stay she will not have had adequate sleep, i.e. she did not sleep in a bed. She was told on Tuesday that a room on the ward would be made available on Friday (or might be made available). That was supposed to console her? I find it extremely hard to believe that there are no rooms that can be made available in the rest of the unit - why was this request confined to Bosworth Ward? I have seen on many occasions previously that nurses are very happy to disrupt the continuity of patient care by move them around the ward from room to dorm, room to room etc. She was told by a doctor that having a room is a “privilege” and similar sentiments have been expressed in the past to her, making her feel very guilty - this is not a choice. If dormitories are the norm in mental health care, then why have all of your new wards built with rooms without dormitories? I’ve seen in the press that the Trust is supposed to never turn anyone away, or at least find them accommodation in another facility. Then why is it that every member of the CMHT and the crisis team tell my partner that there won’t be a place free in hospital? Why should the availability of beds ever been the concern of an unwell person?
I sent requests to Customer Services to possibly inquire about a room anywhere in the unit but it appears to have simply been passed back to the ward itself, or perhaps ignored by anyone able to re-allocate beds between wards. The bed provided for Jo was inappropriate and did not recognize her needs or condition (as stated in the recently celebrated Welcome Pack, which incidentally she didn’t receive until the LAMP worker gave her a copy four days in). Two days ago we finally found out who her named nurse was (in absence of the named nurse assigned to her upon admission), only then were her swollen weeping legs bandaged -upon referal to the tissue viability nurse- despite being seen by a junior doctor previously. This is a side effect of her medication as prescribed by your doctors, the odema splits the skin and smelly fluid seeps out. I can provide photos. This is much than normal, and apparently elevation or rest on a bed greatly reduces the swelling. So, let me emphasise what is going on here: for her own very good reasons relating to her condition and history she can’t sleep in the dorm, she is seen night after night sitting up, special arrangements are made to elevate her legs on a chair. She also has back ache, which she is prescribed painkillers for (not available for a day until after admission) She dozes in the day in the middle of the ward. Shift after shift goes by, the staff seem to be aware of the problem and she accepts that it is normal to “camp out”- moving around with a bag, using a locker for her possessions. This isn’t just a problem with settling in, she is terrified of the dorm. She is still suicidal. She has had only a handful of one-to-one chats, and I’m pretty sure that she hasn’t been well enough to take part in any OT activities on the ward (which seem to be few and far between, on the ward). At what point did you start dehumanizing patients that somehow this level of existence seems normal in a place that has a duty of care? How is she supposed to even start to deal with her mental health when she is busy trying to manage and cope with this surreal and uncomfortable way of living?
I had already planned to provide feedback to yourselves and the Trust Board regarding shortcomings and perhaps a few positives about her previous stay on Ashby Ward. I have held off putting in an official complaints partly because in matters of day-to-day ward care your formal complaints are too slow, and partly because I don’t trust your system. The Care Quality Commission told me that it is important to make complaints formal, but I am exhausted by the dysfunctional nature of the Bradgate Mental Health Unit. You don’t learn or improve anything. Some of your nurses don’t even have people skills, and a zero understanding of what being confined to a ward means for the patient. Every request is like something out of the ordinary. Every denial of a normal activity is a potential trigger. No wonder so many patients abscond, and worse kill themselves. There is no continuity between wards with regards to care, rules or risk assessment, patients have to find their way through even after cursory orientation. Staff forget how absurd everything is. Patient facilities vary, the hygiene, safety and quality of the facilities vary. Your visitor facilities (during visitor hours) are non-existent. Your organization uses the phrase “acute wards” as if it absolves them from any therapeutic ongoing care. “Patient-centred care” is also nonsensical in your one-size-treats all containment approach with some rushed tick-box care-plans. Jo was told on her previous stay that the wards could not cope with her suicidal behavior. Can someone please explain what the Bradgate Mental Health Unit is actually good at? Apart from the new locked doors and intercoms (which staff are hopelessly inept at operating) I can see few positives to any admission.
My partner woke up in a chair this evening and she had forgotten that she didn’t have a room and as I was leaving had thought that she could retire to her room, and she remembered that she’d be staying on chairs tonight. How am I supposed to leave her, knowing that only the absolute minimum has been done to make her comfortable? Why are you still open, why are you even allowed to keep running this service? Give me a reason not to send this letter to every newspaper, MP and service-user groups I know.
W____
Partner/Carer for inpatient J, Bosworth Ward.
(Email, address, phone etc.)
These were just a bundle of frustrations of experiences totally separate from requests or issues regarding my partner’s care. I had been planning for some time to provide general feedback on her previous admission with the hope that someone as the Leicestership Partnership Trust might want to make improvements (which sounds a bit pompous and naive reading that back). As a visitor-carer I felt pretty intimidated by things you’d expect to be quite the reverse in a therapeutic setting. As yet I’ve had no response to this - just an automatic email, but hey, it’s just general feedback.
___
Hi
My partner recently became an patient again at the Bradgate Unit. This is email is a set of observations based mainly on my own experiences as a visitor (carer/next of kin) to several different wards. This is general feedback, just to highlight an awareness of issues and not a complaint. It is also not about her day to day care on the ward. Please feel free to forward to anyone to whom these issues are relevant (i.e. possibly hospital managers regarding building layout issues, amenities and the Head of Wards regarding staff the way staff address visitors in person or through corridor intercoms). The best way to reach me is through email if further views are sought.
W____ ______
(partner / next of kin for J_ _____, currently an inpatient on Bosworth Ward)
____ @ ___
_____________
A Lack of Visible Guidelines for Visitors
After eight months of my partner being on Ashby Ward (briefly staying on Beaumont Ward during building repairs disruption) , I pretty much felt that I understood visitor protocols at the Bradgate Unit. Upon her recent admission to Bosworth Ward, I am finding that every time I have visited that I have somehow broken a rule previously or am in danger of breaking a rule. I have been trained in the Protection of Vulnerable Adults (including awareness of carer and institutional abuse) and many different types of risk assessment in my previous work as a mental health drop-in worker. I am very sympathetic to the needs of the environment of a mental health ward with regards to keeping loved ones safe.
Apart from in the Welcome Pack (procured for my partner only after talking with a LAMP rep and not when she was admitted three days earlier) I see almost no rules or guidelines for patients or visitors on the walls as notices or in the form of leaflets. Examples would be: where are visitors allowed to go on the ward, under which circumstances should bags be searched, who to address when a named nurse is not available.
As with patients, when a rule is being broken it is very important that staff handle the situation in an unprovoking and respectful manner. Visitors are not telepathic and generally the do not wish to disrupt the harmony of the ward, nurses need to be reminded that what is normal to them in their work environment may in fact make no sense to an outsider. Also they may need reminding, as do patients and visitors, that different wards may manage situations differently - even if the end goal is the same, patient safety.
Intercoms and doors
There seems to be some confusion between different staff as to how to address people through the intercoms and then it’s hit and miss if they are able to activate the doors to make them open. The intercom buzzers also appear not to work at times - perhaps when another intercom is in use. This is especially frustrating if you are being kept waiting in one of those greenhouse-like corridors and the button isn’t even making a sound. Instead of operating the doors from the office, nurses will sometimes come out and use key cards (this would usually happen after a delay on both Ashby and Bosworth Ward). I very familiar with the silent green light which means the door was unlocked, so I don’t believe the problem is me pushing a door at the wrong moment, it seems more like a technical flaw or a misunderstanding on behalf of the operator.
Meet and Greet
Upon entering a ward there are small notices asking visitors to address “the receptionist”. This doesn’t make any sense. What receptionist? Where?
On Bosworth and Ashby Ward I’m not sure if this means I am to knock on the closed staff office door or address the nurses at the station/desk. (On Ashby Ward there was at least a sign inviting people to knock and wait) On the newly built Beamont Ward (where my partner was placed in the daytime during disruptive repair work to Ashby) I’m not sure if ever I remember seeing a person/receptionist in in the first bay - which was an issue when trying to leave the ward.
When addressed by staff at the door the ward, sometimes they will just stand there, silent, as if waiting for you to say something. A simple “Hello, how can I help you?” would help (this would also be useful over the intercoms, not just “Yes” or “Hello” or nothing at all). After I had been let on to the ward and walked towards the central area, where my partner was sitting, “Can I help?!” was used in what could only be described as a passive-aggressive threat. Maybe this is just people-skill thing. Nurses introducing themselves and saying their name may help too. I believe that the staff regularly forget what an strange environment the Bradgate Unit for any outsider can be. I have often been involved in my partner’s recovery (and care advocacy) and I have found that lack of the simplest courtesies can be alienating and will make even the calmest person defensive or even argumentative.
After several admissions of my partner to the Bradgate I’m finding that it’s still easy to confuse nurses doing “obs” with those who can help with a query - especially at a desk which might be the nurses station. Again clear directions for enquiry are required.
On a positive note, my partner and I still really appreciate that the nurses are in uniform. However, the signs regarding uniform colour and rank are baffling to me as to their relevance to non-staff (apart from the OTs and domestic staff who are clearly employed on the ward in a very different way). My partner is quick to say that many tasks can only be performed by staff of specific ranks (the distribution of PRN medication for example), but she has had to work this out for herself. None the less, it’s still good to be able to differentiate patients, visitors and clerical staff from the nurses quickly and a uniform helps with this, even if the badges are not on always visible. The photos in the hallway of staff is also a really marvelous idea for orientation.
Facilities for visitors
I really appreciate the new doors in the corridors and the cameras. My partner in the past had been able to run down the corridors and out of reception (at least twice previously). Now I feel she is safer and at times she’s told me it makes her feel safer from herself.
However, when visiting a patient who is confined to the ward, visitors must go through three locked doors and down three long corridors (from Bosworth) to be able to access one toilet (one for each sex) in Reception. Not since school have I had to announce my bladder intentions to so many people and be made to wait at doors. If there is to be any more more improvements to the building, may I suggest that visitor loos be made available in the atriums where the wards meet, i.e. not far from the wards, but still off-ward in line with infection control. I’m not sure what is like for elderly visitors, but I take medication which means that sometimes I need the loo more often than normal, and personally I think it’s a waste of staff time to be buzzing me through more than one door.
As always, drinks machines and refreshments for visitors could be improved with regards to availability and location. Perhaps a change machine could also be provided - as they are in Glenfield Hospital. For some reason the only bins in the reception foyer are in the toilets.
I am not including the Outpatients area or the Involvement Centre (I believe there’s a cafe) as part of visitor facilities as both areas are often closed in the late afternoon and evening (when visiting hours are). During protected mealtimes in the evening, relatives and visitors are corralled in reception, when they waiting to go in. Other places at least have a water cooler. Perhaps the Outpatients’ room with access to it’s snack and drinks machine could opened to the public between 6 and 6.30pm (protected mealtimes period). This may also distract confused and frustrated visitors who are trying to see loved ones but have been told to wait.
Again, a positive improvement last year was the provision of the sofas and plants in the reception area.
Thank you for reading.
W. ———— 24/07/14
—- @ ——
Her advocate never sent a letter to the hospital managers regarding to no-room situation. We could have done with that information a few days ago. (sigh)
Getting confused about the number of nights she’s not slept in a bed whilst on the ward. We think it’s 12.
Nurses told my partner, the inpatient, that a room might be available on Friday. Today is Wednesday. Just the mention of sleeping in a bed in a small dorm with three other people provokes a phobia-like response. So she’ll be on chairs in the main ward until then. Tonight will be her 11th night not in a bed.
I go from angry to numb. Then there’s that broken smithereen shard of hope. Perhaps by the time the next email I’ve sent or the next letter is written, she’ll be in that room and she can finally sleep and relax. My instinct is that official complaints don’t speed things up, but maybe I’ve left it too late to make a difference.
Everything gets pressured before the weekend, because staff and patients know that doctors and supervisors won’t be around until the following week. Ask anyone admitted on a Thursday, whether or not their needs were met before the Wednesday of the following week. I’m guessing that in most cases the answer is “no”. Prove, me, wrong.
She had a ward round today. They’re talking about sending her home at the end of next week. I don’t believe that any recuperation or respite has yet occurred. She will still be really suicidal. There’s talk of something called “bounce back”. The doctor was basically saying that there’s a chance that she may become very unwell again when back at home. When staff say this you think that you’ll allowed back into hospital. Prior to this admission to hospital this notion was totally contradicted by at least one LPNHST worker - a member of some sort new triage service (a crisis team who work with police). Basically you can’t just refer yourself back to hospital when you feel like it, not now, and any staff that were suggesting that to you could shouldn’t have, etc. In Jo’s case, you can’t even ask for help and get it, and even with a police escort you can be turned away.
Yesterday we needed to know if her LAMP advocate had sent a letter to the hospital managers before going on holiday. It was evening so we sent an email - based on the address on their website. The email bounced back this morning. She was too tired and anxious today to phone LAMP. I didn’t hear from her until around 5pm. LAMP hours are 9-4 - which is pretty good for a charity based organisation. The LAMP advocate had originally told us that putting in official complaints can be problematic (due to some sort 25 day response time), so I did not want to proceed until I knew that all other options had been explored. I leave a message on an answer-phone. The problem for me as a carer/next-of-kin/partner is that mental health advocates have to work directly with their client, going through me defeats the purpose of unbiased advocacy. If this patient is too anxious to ring the advocacy service and the emails ping back then we’re a bit screwed, unless of course we catch a LAMP rep in the building at a later date. But hey, apparently we’re very lucky to have such a service in this county. Count our blessings.
We’re always so very very lucky. For example, she’s told that she is lucky that she’s alive after the overdose, she’s told that she’s lucky that they found a place on a ward that’s only 2-3 buses from her home. We’re lucky that there was a place on a ward at all. We’re so lucky. And they wonder why she daren’t ask for help and weeps to them that she’s some sort of a burden. Yes, we’re so lucky that she sometimes has access to care that she is entitled to. She wants to be dead, she thinks she’s failed, she doesn’t feel lucky at all, deal with it. The availability of beds should never be the patient’s problem.
Apparently her swollen legs with the cracked, weeping skin, have benefited greatly from one day of bandages. I doubt this. What further miracles do they have up their short uniformed sleeves?
I’ll type about the missed opportunities to admit my partner to hospital prior to the massive overdose in a later post. Too wound-up now.
These are two recent reviews (July 2014) posted on the NHS Choices website regarding the ward where my partner is currently residing.
http://www.nhs.uk/Services/hospitals/ReviewsAndRatings/DefaultView.aspx?id=2900
No response from the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust at the time of posting.
1 out of 5 stars by AnonymousNever allow anyone to be sent here!
What an amazingly disgusting place to be sent to. I am a health care professional and I work for the NHS. I am a nurse and I have had a crisis and was admitted to Bosworth ward for a stay. I arrived at 0130 in the morning unclean and very hungry after 2 hour drive to the ward. I asked for a shower and was declined saying policy was only between 0800 and 2000 every day the showers are open. ‘We do not have the staff to supervise you’ There are 4 members of staff sat at a table reading magazines and eating ice creams. Any chance of a tooth brush and tooth paste please? No you will have to get it in the morning was the reply.
My bed space was shocking. I have seen cleaner mud huts in Afghanistan. Draws missing broken wardrobe. The bed sheets were clean and the bed was made. There were empty cigarette packets fag buts and rubbish all over the bed space area. It had not been cleaned for a very long time. This was just the start of a very distressing time.
There were some nursing staff that were very pleasant I am very grateful to these staff, however there were a number about 4 who were shockingly rude and dismissive as well as outrightly rude to me. I also suffer from a very painful nerve injury and it had taken over 8 hours to get my pain killers prescribed let alone dispensed to me, despite having bought a great deal with me. So in addition to being in a very distressed manner, I was in great pain. When trying to get information there was no member of staff willing to talk to me in a professional manner. All equipment in the ward was dated and in poor condition. The building was in disrepair and close to not being habitable. The washing facilities were poor as well.
As for treatment I was seen by a doctor by 1000 in the morning a very decent man. I was under the impression that it was a place to get better a place ensure you can be safe. However this is just a holding cell. There are no activities there is no support from the ward staff. However 3 where very engaging and helpful this must make it very hard for these staff to work there knowing every other staff member is shockingly poor.
This is a place that just removes any sign of hope from a person. You can smoke and watch a TV that is covered with plexi glass. There is no stimulation there was no interaction and there was no encouragement either. You are locked up you are a patient and a hindrance to the staff.
There was no treatment there was no care planning and there was no progression but to be locked up. Unable to go anywhere without someone smoking. To eat dinner and have smoke wafting in, lovely.
Never allow someone to be placed here as there is very little hope for them. There is no simulation for a person here. You are locked up and left to wander around aimlessly and think of recovery. While watched by staff that feel you are a hindrance
For the staff that were caring and compassionate please do not pay any attention to this review you are a credit to the NHS.Visited in July 2014. Posted on 26 July 2014
1 out of 5 stars by Relative In DespairAppalling !!
My brother was admitted to the Bosworth ward , initially as a family we were reassured about my brothers treatment . However after the first week we became concerned that during our visits there was no improvement with my brother and regularly fed this back to the ward. It was very difficult to maintain any continuity and despite leaving several messages for my brothers assigned nurse to call us this never happened. My brother was only seen by a doctor once a week and the staff advised us as my brother was polite and compliant that they didn’t see him displaying his ” paranoid and agitated behaviour ” , and so after a couple of weeks he’s now been allowed to discharge himself …. Amazing as previous doctor had sectioned him !! My brother is now been discharged with a care package , if it’s as good as the care on the ward then once again it’s a waste of time .
If you have a friend or family member suffering with mental illness …. Don’t bother sending them to this unit as it’s useless !!Visited in July 2014. Posted on 24 July 2014
These were my partner’s legs today before nurses finally acknowledged that she might need a dressing. (Sorry to do this to you, not for the squeamish) My partner is 37, this type of odema or swelling is something I’d only expect to see in elderly people. In this case it is the result of medication which helps her with her depression. She says that older relatives of hers have suffered from it (but it only started after the change of meds), but it has got much worse since she has been in the ward and as a result she was told to keep the legs elevated (this is difficult because the bed situation is complicated - see previous) The skin tightens, dries and cracks and watery liquid comes out. It also has a faint odour, like a butcher’s shop. The ward is warm, it mixes with sweat. I have to take her slippers and pajama leggings home to wash. A junior doctor did look at them some days ago, but practical help only occurred today. Communication is very poor on the wards. (Bradgate Mental Health Unit, Leics, UK)
Care Quality Commission listing needs not met by local mental health wards in the UK. Example here is a mental health unit in the Midlands.
http://www.cqc.org.uk/location/RT5KF
Kinda wonder what that top one is worth when the rest aren’t met…
I think the top one is to do with brief chats regarding care plans and ward rounds. It doesn’t ring true with what I have seen.
Rou attended our drop-in, I only met him a few times myself, I think we talked about art.
His mother showed me parts of reports by the LPT and the Coroner’s Report. The first LPT NHS report seemed to almost dehumanize him, he took pain medication and this meant he was described as an “addict” for example. There’s a sense of Catch 22 when managers and doctors talk about suicides - almost as if it is impossible to stop a determined person from killing themselves, as if it is a hazard of the job, as if acute wards find suicide prevention to complicated to handle. They talk about “suicide hotspots” in the local area and “collapsible ligature points” in buildings and yet seem to misunderstand the simplest triggers created by the ward stay and forget the day by day effects of deprivation of basic human dignity and freedom. Unwell people are already beyond their control threshold, you only have to belittle a person once and they will detonate. The Coroner’s narrative verdict, to my eyes, reading between the lines, also raised more questions than it answered.
They had a job of containment, they failed. Even when patients say they are still suicidal or very depressed, their level of observation may have been reduced, (or perhaps the staff are distracted by a louder patient that day) and then the when the patient absconds or attempts to kill themself, the staff say that there were no warning signs. Patients can get very wound up by the environment and staff, something simple like a promised walk being taken away can be devastating to a patient confined to a ward. This happens all of the time.
You can be sure that there were many signs and triggers for Rou, but the focus on patient bullying conveniently distracts attention away from the ward staff. It wasn’t just about moving wards (I was told as much). It was never just about another patient.
As far as I know, neither of his parents received any form of apology for the Unit’s failure in it’s basic duty of care. Although not forgivable, it is understandable that, pending litigation, an apology would be an acknowledgement of responsability. There is an irony in the fact that ward culture and community care workers are often telling patients to “own” their issues and take control or more responsibility in their lives. The hypocrisy is tangible.
Since his and other deaths, the Bradgate eventually installed locked doors with intercoms in the corridors. Prior to this, it was possible, once off a ward, to run down the corridors and out into the carpark -a short cut away from a dual carriageway,
If you ever meet my partner, ask her how far she got on most runs down those corridors and outside, before collapsing.
Partner’s care. A new “named nurse” has been assigned and a tissue-viability nurse is looking into protecting the skin of her swollen legs. Possibility of a room with a bed, three days from now. Mixed feelings.
She tells me she wishes that the overdose had succeeded.
10 nights, 11 days. The length of time my partner has not slept in a bed at the Bradgate Mental Health Unit, Leics. She has an a fear of the dorms and the unit has single rooms, but none are available. She dozes in chairs when she can. Her legs need to be kept elevated due to odema swelling in her legs due to her anti-depressant medication - the skin is split and oozes liquid which has an odour. Nurse’s coheres her into not taking her prescribed PRN medication ( this is medication like Lorazepam or Valium which patients can take as and when they are very distraught). She has trouble asking for anything and plucking up the courage to even ask for PRN is very difficult for her, so when it is refused or postponed she is devastated.
Please note when reading these articles that inquests can happen up to a year later than events themselves. Reporters don’t like to go public on information until coroners findings have been published, by which time other misdemeanors have usually occurred. There had been more deaths by the time this was posted. Some organizations are very slow learners.
Bradgate Unit’s ‘failings’ in Gagandip Singh Sandhu death
BBC News 2012
I’ve met Gagan (whilst I was visiting my partner on a ward). It must have been about a year before his death, he was quite a character.
I remember my first night on the ward, I remember my mum leaving me alone there, the nurses tried to calm me down, but I just wanted to be alone. I was in tears, I was scared, I’d never felt so alone. I remember locking my door, I remember the screams coming from other patients, all through the night something was going on, a nurse checks on you every half hour, even when you’re asleep. You get lost in your thoughts throughout the night.
The trouble with psych wards is its not just depressed people, there are people who suffer from all kinds of mental illnesses. I remember one night we all had to be locked in our rooms, or stay in the canteen, because one of the patients thought there were aliens on the ward and he starting smashing doors down, breaking windows, hitting the staff. He had to be injected with something to calm him down.
They make it look glamorous in the movies, but from my experience it was not. It was terrifying. I’d never felt so alone, so empty, so scared.
A coroner told hospital bosses they had failed a patient who died after being found unconscious with a ligature round her neck on a mental health ward. Lydia Brown said the care given to…
Bradgate Mental Health Unit, Leics, UK
I don’t think security would have let me take a photograph but here is a sketch of the front entrance to the Bradgate Mental Health Unit (run by the NHS Leicestershire Partnership Trust), where my partner is staying without a bed. Today’s emails with customer services implied that staff are not looking beyond the ward (to other wards, other units) for a suitable room, and that whilst she has a bed in a public dorm (which she is terrified by), that she must wait for a room to become available on that ward, if at all. The skin on her swollen legs is weeping fluid (a medication side effect, she is only 37) and she is told to keep her legs up - not so easy on chairs. She tries to stay up most nights at a chair and table, and dozes in the day in a more comfortable chair. The ward is warm, sometimes the fluid smells. She is unwell and suicidal. This is the same organization which sent her home after myself and police saved her from a suicide attempt (catching buses to a motorway bridge), whereupon she took then took a massive overdose. She was rushed to A&E and eventually admitted to the Bradgate’ She does not want to be in hospital, she wanted to be dead, she is treated like a trouble maker and time waster. Staff don’t seem to register that their action may amount to neglect. This all happened within two weeks of returning home after an eight month stay in hospital, I don’t understand why we always have to start from scratch. I also don’t trust their complaints procedure as I believe it just results in prejudicial treatment in the short term. If nothing changes soon, I think I will “go public” with everything. I have already been sending information on this to the Care Quality Commision.Tonight will be the 9th night she won’t have slept in a bed. Edit: 10th night.
