billiambabble:

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.