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Life after Maudsley
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Life after Maudsley means second-rate healthcare July 20th
2007 THE grim reality of mental health care after the closure of
the Maudsley's 24-hour emergency clinic was revealed this week. Sarah Tonin, who suffers from schizophrenia, joined
thousands in the fight to keep the clinic open, warning that without its
specialist staff, patients in South London would be left with a second-rate
service. The campaigners lost their fight and within weeks of its
closure Sarah found out first hand that their predictions were true. In the middle of a severe mental health crisis, she was
sent to King's College Hospital's A&E where a frightening five-hour
ordeal followed. Manhandled by security guards and treated in an open ward
instead of the segregated area promised by then Health Secretary Patricia
Hewitt.
The professionalism of the staff at King's is not in doubt
but the simple fact is that compared to the 24-hour emergency clinic,it is
not good enough. SARAH Tonin campaigned for the Maudsley's emergency clinic
for two years,but despite the efforts of her and thousands of others it
closed. Then, just weeks after it stopped seeing emergency cases,
she suffered a mental crisis and saw first hand what happens without it. Sarah, 37, has schizophrenia and about a month ago began
to go into the most severe mental crisis she has experienced in 10 years. She believed she could see bodies, that strangers on the
street were giving messages to her and thought she was in extreme danger. The emergency clinic at the Maudsley Hospital in Denmark
Hill would have been her first port of call, but after its closure Sarah
tried to get through it at home. Things then came to a head on June 24 when in desperation
her parents called first an ambulance, then an out-of-hours doctor, and
finally the police. Although Sarah was at the height of the crisis only the
doctor was able to give her medication, the others simply left her in the
care of her frightened parents at her flat in Peckham. Finally her worried parents decided to drive her to the
Maudsley the next morning and see if they could get help. They were sent to King's College Hospital A&E in
Denmark Hill. But, frightened and confused, when she arrived at
reception, Sarah refused to leave and had to be carried into the Majors unit
in A&E - a room lined with cubicles - by security guards. She said: "These two big security men carried me,
they had rubber gloves on and that scared me because I thought they were
going to strip-search me. "They carried me into a cubicle. There were lots of
old people coming in on drips and things, and I could hear people talking
about me." When then Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt signed off the
clinic's closure in January she said one of the conditions was that there had
to be a separate space in A&E for mentally-ill patients. Sarah was taken there during her stay, with guards
stationed outside,but was too distressed to stay there long. Sarah said: "I know now that the security guards were
meaning to help me,but it was very frightening." After being seen by a psychiatric nurse, a doctor, two
psychiatrists and a social worker she was sectioned under the Mental Health
Act. She was there for five hours before being transferred to Guy's hospital. King's did everything by the book - the service Sarah got
was the best service they can offer. But Sarah said: "It wasn't enough, it just wasn't.
I'm so worried now about other people going there and feeling the way I felt.
I know it would not have been like that at the clinic." A spokeswoman from King's College Hospital said: "The
patient was seen by a psychiatric liaison nurse within a minute of coming
into the reception. "There was a problem in that she would not come out
of the reception area, she was in acute distress and she needed to get out of
there. The security guards were called with her parents' consent. "I understand that if you are used to the emergency
clinic it might be difficult to come into something different, but she saw
all the right people and the processes were followed absolutely." |
