My local MH services

[trombone_babe]

are a joke!

Basically they don't care. I was referred to them in September as a means to get some talking therapy.

Well the first person I saw was lovely, she has been the only good thing about the service. However since then it has been a catalogue of blunders and being let down.

1. I turned up for my first appointment with the doctor there, only to be told that he/she was longer there (no further explanation). There was a new doctor but he/she was on an induction course. They must have known this when the appointment was made (as it was only the previous week) but they had not informed me that the appointment had been cancelled, I just turned up to find this had happened.

2. I then turned up to an appointment for the following week (having changed some travel plans to get there) to be confronted with a newbie who had no idea. She had to ask the consultant what meds to give me and fair enough, he came in and explained things to me.

3. I asked about the talking therapy. I was told I had been referred in November but there was a 6 month waiting list. Furthermore, I was told that they could not see me until I was "better". What's the point in that? I need help to get me through this, not as an afterthought. So I was given yet more drugs on top of what I was already taking. On top of this, I've since been told by my occupational health doctor that I won't be considered fit to work until I've had some talking therapy.

4. Next time I had an appointment with a doctor I saw a new consultant. She was very aloof and really talked down to me (I'm a professional person with a MH problem, not the village idiot), and suggested another change in meds. As I'd had a bad reaction last time I changed I expressed a little bit of concern, just "oh dear", nothing more. She then threatened me with hospital if I didn't want to do what she said. Needless to say I was extremely upset. The next session there was no apology, just "we had a bad session last time, but sometimes we have to push people to see how bad they are". I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And she changed my meds AGAIN.

5. Having been told to contact the department if I had any problems with the new meds, I rang them on Monday to say I think I was having a reaction to them (see my post about mirtazapine and restlessness). I was told there was no-one available to speak to me and that someone would ring back. No-one called.

6. Yesterday, having had a very bad day with this reaction and become very distressed, I went into the hospital as I was passing and asked to speak to someone. "Oh yes we had a call from you yesterday didn't we? We were going to leave it until Wednesday when your doctor will be back in." Nice of them to tell me. . She then had to ring around quite a few people to find someone who would see me. Eventually a social worker came out and took the details of my problem, asked a doctor what I should do and sent me on my way with a small reduction in dose, pending my appointment with the intake team the next day (ie today). She's the nice one I saw first.

7. This morning I get a call to say my appointment had been cancelled due to an emergency (fair enough) and that I had to wait until the 17th to see her. That's much too far away in my opinion, so I asked if I could have something sooner. I've yet to find out if that's going to happen.

So quite a few problems. Basically I don't think that any of them, other than the lady from the intake team, give a damn. Sorry it's such a long post, I just felt that I needed to vent about this somewhere! I'm sure many of you have similar if not worse stories about MH services, I think the whole system is a joke.

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end, I feel a bit better now.

 

[SimonB]

Similar thing happened to me yesterday.....I do think they have brains the size of peas sometimes!

 

[colourblind]

Similar here with me. Only I now learnt my lesson, it feels unsafe for me to spend time within my local mental health service. I try to keep my distance now!

I was admitted for a chronic eating disorder a few years ago. 4 months later I left the service, it was unsafe for me to return home so I moved into a supported halfway house. Fantastic, I made some really good friends. Realised the eating disorder went deeper then a few months of fast food eating in the hospital I asked my mental health service if I could be referred to a psychothrapist.

Before I left the halfway house (18 months later I was not ready but funding ran out) I asked again. Apparently I had not even been put on the waiting list, they had basicly forgotten.

So I asked to be put on the waiting list. 2 weeks later there is no waiting list for psychotherapy, only a psychologist, but I can join that if I want to, its 8 months long. At the same time I begin to gain weight, I have no support and no game plan as to what to do with the thoughts and feelings I am unable to cope with.

6 months pass. I am told that I may or may not be able to see the psychologist for a maximum of 8 sessions (I had asked for longer term) and it may be that I am offered group therapy instead. I had by that point a BMI of 17, having dropped from 20 thus meeting the criterea for anorexia.

At that point I joined a new waiting list for private psychotherapy. Best choice I ever made even if I could not afford it without a loan!

Roll on 12 months, my mood begins to drop. I begin to 'lose the plot' and end up at my A&E asking for help as I want to kill myself. I am quite sure I will do this if I go home so the duty psychiatrist admits me. There are no beds on my ward so I am put on a ward for a different local authority.

They don't make me eat which I am grateful for but I do try. They keep tabs on my weight and mention I am losing weight (they chose to weigh me twice a day).
I begin to find it easier but still am too scared to go home when they ask. I am still to terrified to do most things besides cry alot and curl into a ball alot. I do not want to go home as I live alone and its not a good idea, for the exact same reason I was admitted there.

Day 2. I am told I have a wardround. I am taken to the wardround which consists of another psychiatrist, a nurse and a trainee taking notes.
I am told I must go home, that I am not making any effort, that I am in the wrong ward for my local authority, that they need the beds and I need to leave. I say I feel suicidal, that I live alone, that I am scared. They say that I still must go home. They ask me if I want to order a cab. When they said I needed to go home, it was like then and there.

I am still amazed at how I actually managed. I spent one night at my mums, the rest at home in bed wanting very much to not wake up. I still feel the same sense of dread and fear and despair that I felt back then. I still feel so much anger at the mental health team. Its so cakc handed that I wonder if I had people around me, they would have made a case, taken them to court, done something to get some sort of revenge. I also wonder if I would have taken the overdose, if they would have been accountable. If I had not been at Uni at the time and had something to plan my energies back into, if I had not by pure chance had an eating disordered history and had a psychatrist who I could call up (different borough) I wonder if I would have even still have been here to write this.