This is an old draft but still relevant
I think the Australian Government needs to do a better job at handling mental health situations such as episodes and reform.
Recently someone in my family was admitted to the hospital due to a manic episode. The hospital was only a temporary one meant to be for 48 hours max. But he was there for a whole week then transferred to a proper ward for another week.
Unfortunately the doctors and nurses weren't doing well at being communicative with issues with how he was going. They were concerned about what he was saying and took a lot of things at face value.
A major issue I found out while trying to help him through everything by visiting him often did have to do with this lack of communication. We asked when he was able to get out at the first hospital and they said initially he may be here for a week, then we find out it's only a 48hr hospital. But he stays for a week anyway. They then tell him he's only being transferred for a short time, but he stays at the new hospital for a week as well. We ask a nurse when he should be able to get out, the nurse directs us to a doctor, the doctor directs to the psychiatrist that only shows up on weekdays, (it was friday). The psychiatrist then tells us he may be there for another week as nurses and doctors had to assess him further.
This was too much of a roundabout way just to find out how long people are usually admitted for. He also had a social worker saying he can help him get out, and the psychiatrist told us that wasn't going to be the case.
The lack of direction and help to find out how the process works was very concerning.
The next point is a bit of a personal issue, but the psychiatrist we talked too didn't seem to care so much that we needed to more information.
What seemed more concerning was they were withholding information from us about him being pinned down by security and having to be restrained. And then being told we weren't told that until that meeting because they don't want to show that to families?????? I think a family has the right to know how much force is needed on the person being admitted to give a scale on how serious the case is.
The psychiatrist also didn't think us wanting to help him get out due to the bad environment in the wards affecting him mentally more was a justified enough reason for him to consider allowing it or us mentioning it too him as he put himself on the defensive.
The environment itself was very hard for him to be in, the reason being is as his manic state started to relax and sustain back to normal, the environment he was in was threatening, boring, and uncomfortable. It was threatening as there were patients that had physically attacked him, yelled at him, and were screaming. Which was hard on him, boring due to the lack of anything to do making his one activity pacing, and it was just an uncomfortable situation to be in.
Even when I walked in to visit a few times I was threatened by the same patient that attacked him. And none of the behaviour is the wards fault or even the patients, everyone there needed mental therapy and help. But it was not ok for someone like my family member who had never experienced it before and was shoved into that situation.
Talking about needing mental help, there were not enough doctors around to help everyone, everyone had a specific time slot for a select few doctors, and a lot of the time when the patients felt anxious or even nervous, they weren't given any help besides medication. And I saw him take a pill every time he had a panic attack. And it wasn't healthy.
After he got out (the only reason by the way was because he got attacked), they barely gave him any information on how to improve besides some required counselling sessions. They didn't try to help him financially as he was struggling as they tried readjusting again. And they didn't treat him with a lot of respect, they treated him like he kept saying all the wrong things.
Its very jarring to see how all of this went down and to be very honest it should've been better. Even myself with mental health issues, it's hard to get help even on days I'm having a depressive episodes there isn't much of an incentive to seek out medical support due to the high costs even after Medicare and health care, and the lack of financial freedom you get when having these illnesses. I get so anxious I can't work but no job employer wants to know that, and having that on a centrelink document doesn't do much but give you a few months of breathing room even with the low pay I'm getting.
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