Wow, ta for that, sounds very old school.
wow, they let you eat? The one I was in everyone started on a jello, broth and juice/tea/coffee diet for the first four days. No one would ever explain why to me but after reading some articles on brainwashing and torture it made absolute sense, and is also strangely against the geneva convention but perfectly okay to do to mental patients in the US
as for the bills, psych is right up there with poor coverage as dental and eye.
Were they accommodating of patients with certain dietary needs? I’m vegan (but will eat food with dairy and egg ingredients if there’s literally nothing else) and I’ve always wondered if a hospital would respect that.
I’m disabled, and in 2006 my husband took our only vehicle and took off on a wild snatch hunt for 4 days leaving me alone in a rural area, no transport, did not know anyone there to ask for help and had virtually no food or medical supplies and a bad case of flu.
when he came back I was delirious with a fever of 104, so badly dehydrated I couldn’t stand and EMT’s could not get blood pressure.
If it had become known he had abandoned me in that manner adult protective svcs would have stepped in an would have been in deep shit so he called 911 and told them I was suicidal.
In the er while they tried to rehydrate me and bring the fever down I kept trying to express what had happened, but because of how he had called it in they focused on directed questions about depression and other things I can’t remember and at one point I said "I’m tired of dealing with this! “(meaning being sick, his abuse and neglect and being a douchebag in general, and them not listening to what I had to say and instead dogging me with pointless questions.) Some cash passed from my husbands hands to the doctors (I saw that take place) and between that and the I’m tired of this” comment which they took as an admission of being suicidal ( they did not bother to define what I was tired of it was assumed life.)
I was there a week. In that time:
I (and others)were attacked and beaten by a violent patient (they weren’t kept separate)
I NEVER saw a doctor until the exit interview despite demanding to and pointing out on the list of patient rights that I legally had that right as well to see hospital admin or a patient advocate, I never saw any of them.
I was forced to shower before a male orderly (who had wandering grabby hands and inappropriate behavour) despite my demands for a female orderly (which they had 2 male and 12 female, this was not an unreasonable demand, other patients were allowed to shower in front of female staff.)
I did not sleep the entire time I was there because day and night, every fifteen minutes an orderly (usually grabby) would track you down day and night no matter what, they would walk in on you while using the toilet, and at night would walk up and touch you to make sure you hadn’t stacked your bedding and snuck off. There are not enough tranquilizers in the world to keep me under knowing a potential rapist (and I do believe he would and probably had in the past) was going to walk in and touch me ( or worse) I laid under the bed on the cold hard floor and as soon as he walked in yelled “I am here and awake and you do not have the right to touch me, get out” loud enough for everyone within two or three rooms and the security camera in the hall to hear.
Most of this shit is against the geneva convention against POW, but despite that big list of your rights perfectly okay to do to someone on a psych ward. Those rules only apply to those who have caring family members with money who show up to see them enforced.
the only reason I got out was I was the only one with income and account was solely in my name with a warning annotation that he was not above forgery. He finally got hungry and came and got me.
I now carry a knife and know where my cartaroid and jugular are and will slit both repeatedly before going into such a place again. I have horrific nightmares and anxiety problems now. I wrote many letters to the government and overseeing committees and various mental health orgs and was told an inquiry was made but never heard more that.
I’m told that particular hospital is rated amongst the worst in the country and that local hospital would not be like that. not believing it.
Saint Francis in San Francisco did. They gave me a list from which I could choose special diet choices. Of course it took two days to get it right by which time I was discharged. (Good behavior 
)
sidhechaos, I am so sorry that you had to go through such a traumatic experience. Your anger is certainly understandable.
There are definitely a great many changes that should be made when it comes to how such situations are handled, especially when it comes to protecting people who have been made vulnerable.
I hope you are in a better situation now.
When I was 13, I ran away because of stress at school and a somewhat abusive situation at home. I realized that hitchhiking across the country was probably a bad idea after 2 days and decided to start heading back. When I ran into a cop, he took me to a hospital because he thought I had been raped or abducted. I insisted that I hadn’t, but I also didn’t want to admit that my dad had beaten me up a few times recently because I believed it would be bad for my sisters. They stuck me in the juvenile psych ward for around a week.
It was, well, not terrible. Food was ok and there was a tv and a Nintendo. We did not have to shower in front of people. They made me wear a hospital gown for the first day or so because, having run away from home, I was supposedly a flight risk. We had some kind of point system where you got demerits for not showing up to therapy or eating your food. During the night someone would poke their head in the door every hour, but I still slept ok. We spent most of the day doing group therapy with a few hours of schoolwork. I saw a doctor once I think, he put me on Zoloft and Trileptal. For some reason they thought I had epilepsy so I had to stay up all night once and do an EEG sleep study.
I was surprised at how nice the other kids were. Most of them were there for cutting or suicide attempts or smoking pot. For the first time I learned that one could get high off Robitussin. The one heartbreaking case I saw was a little Serbian immigrant boy who was only 10. Someone had made fun of his accent at school and he started punching the kid. He ended up going to a residential treatment center for two years, and I wonder what happened to him. He was the sweetest kid, but obviously had been bullied a lot. I had very few friends at school, but a boy I met there eventually started hanging out with me and introducing me to people when we were both released.
I don’t think I would do well at all in there because I wouldn’t take kindly to being forced to take whatever drugs they felt like prescribing me.
That was certainly a problem for some people. One guy barricaded himself in his room because he didn’t want to take his meds and the police and fire department were called. I still don’t know how they got him out since the rest of us were locked in the common room during this and the staff wouldn’t talk about it. I was okay with taking my meds, it was just Zoloft and Trazadone (which I welcomed so I could sleep).
Zago, thank you for your response. It’s an issue I would not have thought of, even though I know how much my own stability depends on the ability to exercise every day.
Thanks to all who are sharing their experiences, too.
The lack of the possibility to exercise is a HUGE problem and one that the staff is very attuned to at this facility. It all comes down to dollars - there would need to be a major influx of funding. Right now, even getting fresh air can be a problem because they have to have an extra staff member to take patients outside. I was there in March - it was still snowing in Boston so the sunny days were sparce. The staff did seem to be sensitive to that and arranged extra coverage on the only two sunny days so that those of us who wanted to go out could. I say that my experience was horrible, it was, but when I read some of your other experiences, I think I had it relatively easy.
The exercise issue (lack of) is a HUGE issue and at least at the facility that I was at they are very aware of the problem. They need money, but the psych ward isn’t at the top of the list when it comes to funding. Let’s be honest, cancer patients are so much more sympathetic than psychiatric patients (my father died of cancer so I have no lack of sympathy). This is why psychiatric treatment should be guaranteed equal coverage/treatment at the state and federal level and facilities should be brought up to normal hospital standards. I’m not kidding when I say that my experience was not far from ‘One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest’. That ward was archaic! At least we got to order our own food (we were given menus) and the staff seemed relatively enlightened compared with some of your experiences - I mean at least I was allowed to shower alone.
As someone who has worked on mental health units, I think that study was a product of its time. 40 years ago, it was far more common for people to have prolonged psych admissions. Nowadays, if anything, there is pressure to get people OUT of the hospital as soon as possible because insurance companies don’t want to pay for long hospitalizations. You can have a serious suicide attempt and be back out of the hospital within a few days.
I am not exaggerating: The insurance companies will call the psychiatrist and give them a hard time about keeping the patient another day if the patient isn’t explicitly saying they want to kill themselves.
I would say average length of stay for most psych inpatient units would be a few days. Staying on the unit more than a week or two would be extremely unusual nowadays unless it is a very, very unstable person who is unusually difficult to treat.
lavenderviolet,
Very good analysis. My doctor basically admitted that he would like to keep me in longer, until I’d had one or two ECT treatments, but my insurance company was balking. It was the only time I was glad to have a shitty insurance group because at least it seemed to hasten my release. The bills, after the fact, have been outrageous. If any of you have a say in it don’t EVER go with Aetna (my company’s decision, not mine).
I am a mental health nurse. I mainly work with the elderly though, so I can’t really comment too much on a general psych ward. I am not here to be an apologist for the “system” I am actually looking to get out and back into a regular nursing job or long term care facility, because I really don’t enjoy working in mental health anymore.
I really appreciate this thread. There is a real problem for nurses to be both caring and “setting limits” with patients. I will admit that some people seem to enter the profession because they are bullies. Psych nurses are a strange bunch, and certain ones will bully the patients and other staff members, especially ones considered “weak” or “having porous boundaries”. In my years of nursing I have only known one who was outright fired/lost his nursing licence/faced criminal charges due to abuse of a patient, but I know others who were watched, changed schedules, not given permanent full time because of questionable behavior. Of course I tend to be oblivious to gossip…either because I am not linked in to “the cool kids” (the joke around most places is only the smokers know all the details because they all hang out and gossip with other floors on their breaks) or because I follow the idea that “great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about things, small minds talk about people”.
As a nurse I have always tried to maintain a balance between keeping my patients motivated and doing things with people’s need for privacy and space. Yes, it is better for you, your outcomes, etc if you go out on the ward and do the crafts and go to the movies, and eat your meals and shower daily. You may not feel like it (depressed people don’t have energy or motivation, people who are manic may not feel the need to, schizophrenics will often have long complicated reasons that make sense to them about why they can’t shower)
I really don’t want to hijack the thread. I am very appreciative of seeing patients POV. It makes me further determined to change fields.
In the mean time one question: What can the nurses do to make life better for the patients, while still following the rules?
In the mean time one question: What can the nurses do to make life better for the patients, while still following the rules?
[/QUOTE]
I would say that the one thing you could do is treat me with respect. I get that the policies on the ward override your general ability to influence the way things are done. But as an individual, please treat me as the intelligent and emotional person that I am. I’m not a wacko - I’m a person, not so different from you, who has had a very hard time coping with life at this particular time.
Zago. If you read the rest of my post,(I am sure you did) you will understand that I actually prefer treating people with respect and dignity, and that is why I am leaving mental health nursing. Compared with what others are posting the place I work is pretty free and respecting of people, and I still think most psych nurses are bullies. Some of us do want to help though. I used to try to think up ways to make unpleasant things more pleasant, (I remember advocating this lady get plastic knitting needles at least, despite her suicidality, so she could knit in the day room, that was what she liked to do. This was not popular with co workers… “now we have to watch her” … grumble grumble.
One thing I wonder is if people would say to their co patients “smarten up you are messing this up for all of us” when things like contraband on the unit made room searches more frequent.
Mona Lisa Simpson
I absolutely get that you advocate for the patients. While my experience in the hospital was horrible at least I had staff that was mostly (not entirely) sympathetic and enlightened. It was the facility itself and their rules/policies that made the stay so horrid and there was at least one staff member who used his authority to abuse us.
Oh I agree. Like I said I am neither trying to hijack the thread nor defend the system. I am sorry it was so rough for you. I have struggled with depression at times myself and tend to think “that could be me” more than anything else. Thank you for sharing. Feel free to pm me if you would like to. (Or tell me to go away, that is also your right.)
I hope Zago doesn’t mind me posting my experience (if you do, Zago, I understand and will stop), but it seemed like your question got a bit lost.
(Huh, I didn’t think this would be hard to say but it is: I was on my hospital’s psych ward for a few days almost 2 years ago. (suicidal))
I can’t say what other wards are like, but on mine, the responses to the goal-for-the-day question were along the lines of:
- take all my meds
- attend group
- get released (big favorite)
- stay safe (not try to harm yourself)
- call my family member/someone else
- talk to my assigned psychiatrist
and things like that.
Also, just to add a different perspective: on the ward I was on, you were allowed to not take your meds, it was just made clear that they disapproved of that and that you would not be released until you started taking them. (I don’t know if that was a blanket policy for absolutely everyone there because the only person who refused to take meds was clearly not in touch with reality, so he probably wouldn’t have been considered stable without them. Wouldn’t surprise me though - they were big on meds.)
Personally, my psychiatrist wanted to tweak my meds, but I felt that wasn’t necessary*, and they let me go. (Though, I was voluntarily committed, so I think legally, they didn’t have a choice once I’d requested to be released and they’d held me for the 72 hours they were allowed to after it was requested. :rolleyes: I was under the impression going in that because it was voluntary, they had to release me as soon as I requested it, but apparently not.)
This is in Maryland, by the way, if that’s relevant.
*More info, if you’re interested: I’d been struggling with depression for years, but I started an herbal supplement and immediately started having new, strong feelings of wanting to kill myself, which is why my therapist thought I should go to the hospital. The feelings went away very quickly once I stopped taking it. The ward psychiatrist was very skeptical though and really wanted to change my meds. Which I understand (I’m sure people use every excuse/reason under the sun to get released, whether it’s true or not) but I really was telling the truth, and that experience scared me enough that I’m determined never to be involuntarily committed.
(It’s not that my experience on the ward was that bad, it really wasn’t (I mean, it wasn’t great, but under the circumstances, it was okay. Couldn’t stand my roommate, though. And the day room smelled like pee), but the idea of being kept there unnecessarily without any say in it at all terrifies me.)