Low point of the week:
My partner ringing me from a locked mental health ward begging me to bring in paracetamol so that she can take an overdose. She believes totally that killing herself is the right thing to do.
Absurdly, a few days on from this, her doctor has gone back to the stance that she must be free to leave the ward if she asks to, even if she is stating to the nurses that she intends to kill herself. Apparently this is to empower her and imbue a sense of responsability. The nurses are not to stop her and she is to sign a form absolving the whole service of any further duties towards her. This has been written in her care plan. I will be adding my own comments tomorrow. I will be requesting that she is to be kept safe, especially when the treatment is failing. Perhaps she can be kept safe until alternative care can be provided. Also I am considering writing on the care plan that I will be calling the police if I know she is suicidal without supervision, i.e. released from care without sufficient community care provision. Naturally this may invalidate what they are trying to achieve, but J is very scared of herself and what she might do. Considering the days leading up to admission, I am also terrified of what she will do. The psychiatrist has said on three occasions that “no-one can stop suicidal people from killing themselves”. I have pointed out that locked doors stop suicidal people and that since I cannot legally imprison my partner or take away her pills this is one of the few things a mental health unit is good at. Unfortunately this is the Bradgate Mental Health Unit (Leics PT NHS) and they are also rather good at getting into the newspapers whenever there is an inquest about a patient who absconded to kill them-self or a patient who died on the premises.
Remember that this is the better ward and that so far the nurses have doing their jobs well (as opposed to the triggering negligence we have witness at first hand on other wards).
Strangely (to me), this doctor is not a fool and I respect some of her opinions, but I resent her the gambling with J’s life, with what is a cynically shallow minded behavioral contract and the implication that J’s ability to “make a decision” means that she is “well” and not vulnerable. Decision making does not equal unclouded full mental capacity. These professionals at this unit believe their job is only to treat the cases with predictable turnarounds, and they don’t acknowledge that all of the other services see mental health units as places of safety, regardless of treatment results. J has finally agreed to a change in meds. I guess one thing these units are also good at is monitoring meds. Sometimes you hope that you can just phrase something in the right way that perhaps the world of the psychiatrists and the mental health service might respond in a way that mimics would you would expect of a caring profession. I never thought I’d be typing a phrase like that. I used to be so suspicious of critics of therapists, psychiartrists, or even NHS mental health care. Hopefully my next post will not be my partner’s obituary. Hopefully.
My partner ringing me from a locked mental health ward begging me to bring in paracetamol so that she can take an overdose. She believes totally that killing herself is the right thing to do.
Absurdly, a few days on from this, her doctor has gone back to the stance that she must be free to leave the ward if she asks to, even if she is stating to the nurses that she intends to kill herself. Apparently this is to empower her and imbue a sense of responsability. The nurses are not to stop her and she is to sign a form absolving the whole service of any further duties towards her. This has been written in her care plan. I will be adding my own comments tomorrow. I will be requesting that she is to be kept safe, especially when the treatment is failing. Perhaps she can be kept safe until alternative care can be provided. Also I am considering writing on the care plan that I will be calling the police if I know she is suicidal without supervision, i.e. released from care without sufficient community care provision. Naturally this may invalidate what they are trying to achieve, but J is very scared of herself and what she might do. Considering the days leading up to admission, I am also terrified of what she will do. The psychiatrist has said on three occasions that “no-one can stop suicidal people from killing themselves”. I have pointed out that locked doors stop suicidal people and that since I cannot legally imprison my partner or take away her pills this is one of the few things a mental health unit is good at. Unfortunately this is the Bradgate Mental Health Unit (Leics PT NHS) and they are also rather good at getting into the newspapers whenever there is an inquest about a patient who absconded to kill them-self or a patient who died on the premises.
Remember that this is the better ward and that so far the nurses have doing their jobs well (as opposed to the triggering negligence we have witness at first hand on other wards).
Strangely (to me), this doctor is not a fool and I respect some of her opinions, but I resent her the gambling with J’s life, with what is a cynically shallow minded behavioral contract and the implication that J’s ability to “make a decision” means that she is “well” and not vulnerable. Decision making does not equal unclouded full mental capacity. These professionals at this unit believe their job is only to treat the cases with predictable turnarounds, and they don’t acknowledge that all of the other services see mental health units as places of safety, regardless of treatment results. J has finally agreed to a change in meds. I guess one thing these units are also good at is monitoring meds. Sometimes you hope that you can just phrase something in the right way that perhaps the world of the psychiatrists and the mental health service might respond in a way that mimics would you would expect of a caring profession. I never thought I’d be typing a phrase like that. I used to be so suspicious of critics of therapists, psychiartrists, or even NHS mental health care. Hopefully my next post will not be my partner’s obituary. Hopefully.
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