East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
- By Hippyhippo
-
Mon 2 Feb 2009 01:29
Anybody else struggling in this area with the person they care for being ignored/neglected by professionals?
I am a carer of a young woman who lives with me as if my daughter (I also have a grown autistic son living with me). My husband accompanied her to hospital in the early hours of this morning as an emergency admission due to hearing voices/self harm but she was sent home again in the late afternoon with the CATT team insisting she was just having behavioural problems and not actually having any of the auditory or visual hallucinations that were terrifying and distressing her. Her local mental health team have had her under them for eighteen months and done nothing at all to support her because she also has a very very mild learning disability and they are too busy arguing who should pick up the tab for her care, them or the ld team. I think mental health care workers in this area are in my experience institutionally prejudiced against people with learning diffiuclties who also have mental health problems, they just assign everything to attention-seeking, acting-out, behavioural issues.
This afternoon I was so stressed after a week of her being acutely confused and distressed I said we were not accepting her discharge to home unless they had first actually treated her at the hospital. They actually said if I did not accept her discharge to us I was making her homeless and threatened to call social services to take her away from us., so we had to cave in. We are exhausted. I have M.E., depression and diabetes and my husband works full time, and my son is getting short shrift in his care due to her overriding needs.
I have now been sat here for two hours after everyone else in bed looking at my insulin supplies and pondering the likely effect of a massive overdose. I think I have beaten the urge now but unless there is some help it will be back.
Replies
- By Hippyhippo
-
Re: East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
Mon 2 Feb 2009 01:33I hasten to add an overdose for ME not for my daughter!
-
By astronut
-
Re: East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
Tue 3 Feb 2009 10:08Hi, I'm in the same area and I agree completely.
My son is 14,non-verbal, autistic, has OCD and at the moment mobility problems. He is prone to lashing out at things(and me) when there are changes he can't cope with - but he has just been signed off by CAMHS and the challenging behaviour team.
Does this mean he has been miraculously cured? lol I wish!
We are currently on our own in dealing with his behaviour, school are worse than useless, actually they cause a lot of his problems, so I have just decided to pay for a private assessment by an ed psych. Yes, the school could get the LA psych to do his, but the waiting list makes it kind of irrelevent - I need advice now, not after Easter...
Social services, by the way, will not want to pay for her care, so the health workers were bluffing - as she has medical needs, they would also have to pay, ss would make sure of that! I would be tempted to call their bluff and ask for a family conference, so that everyone ionvolved could have a say. Then point out that it is much cheaper for her to stay with you, with the right support.
There is an art, I think, to playing the system. It is not easy to get exactly what you need from the various services.
Best wishes.
- By morello
-
Re: East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
Tue 3 Feb 2009 11:06I think this apathy is just part of the general problem with the health service and the social services. I too care alone 24/7 for my sister who is 52. She is autistic, non verbal, epileptic . aggressive and ocd patterns. She changes her clothes everytime time she gets them wet, then the minute she is changed she goes back to the tap and soaks herself. I now feel like I am running a chinese laundry. I get no help or support, have no social worker, but to be honest the lot of them in Derbyshire I have had are crap. They do what they want, and damn the problems they leave you with. I wont stand them anymore. What was a manageable person to a certain extent 2 years ago has been changed into the job from hell, since their interference. They arent professionals at all they are overpaid idiots who havent a clue. What they learn from books doesnt transfer to reality one iota.
Mo
- By Ian0162
-
Re: East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
Thu 5 Feb 2009 22:31As a former nurse one of the reasons I left the profession was because the promises often made in the organisations mission statements and ideals were when put to the test often missing. I must state that some nurses, social workers, etc. that I have met as a colleague, carer and patient are excellent. Unfortunately there are others who I would not let treat my dog. Another reason I left nursing was because I personally did not feel I possessed the knowledge and skills to provide care in a competent manner. My advice would be that if you think you are being ignored or neglected a lot of primary care trust and local authority care policies and procedures maybe available over the internet. A word of caution though. Some professionals take it personally when quoting their own policies and procedures and may be quite hostile. Others will welcome carers opinions and views. I have had personal experience of both and have valued their support especially those occasions when they have been honest and said they don't know but would find out and get back to me.
- By Hippyhippo
-
Re: East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
Mon 8 Jun 2009 22:59Hi, original poster here again. Thanks to the useless support in this area we have now had two entirely avoidable occassions where my daughter with mental health problems has had to be subdued and arrested by police and taken to St Martins. The last occassion they finally consented to take her as a voluntary patient recognising she is extremely distressed and suicidal. Nobody however appears to notice that as her carer I also am extremely distressed and suicidal... but then carers are totally invisible people, or so it seems.
- By fenlander
-
Re: East Kent mental health care or lack thereof
Tue 9 Jun 2009 17:00Its no unique to East Kent - not that that makes it right.