At Leigh Infirmary while I was detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act 1983 during my
10 days' detainment in the Makerfield Unit (a single-sex male ward):
My named nurse, the person who I took any enquiries or complaints to and who had discussions with
me about how I was feeling, was to my approximation a forty- or fifty-something woman. She once
had a talk with me during which she made jokes and tried to discover more information about me.
She was interested in Asperger's syndrome, which I've been diagnosed with, and believed she had
it and made examples of why she thought she did. She seemed to have quite a sense of humour but
alternated between being funny and serious. At one point, we were discussing in a serious manner
how to deter crime. She said she thought prisoners should get only "bread and water". I was dis-
concerted by her remark but in an attempt to hide it, made a joke about her religious
denomination, 'That's the Catholic in you speaking there.'
After our meeting, as well as asking how I was every so often she'd sometimes wink privately to
me as she passed. I'm not sure why. She stopped after a few days, possibly because I never did
anything in reaction but smile dumbly. I considered her to be a nicer nurse than most and so
was surprised one day when a bald, little man who frequently came into dispute with the staff was
being pulled involuntarily by two nurses towards his dormitory. Just as the two nurses were
opening his dormitory's door and pushing him in, my named nurse walked up to him quickly from
behind and thrusted her hand onto the back of his head, shoving it down, angrily saying, 'Get
in there!'
On the second night I was lying in my bed, unable to sleep. Not yet accustomed to the system of
alarms that operated in the ward, I got up out of bed and pressed an orange illuminated button
on my bedroom wall with an illustration of a nurse on it. I assumed this would be the correct
thing to do since the nurses turned most the lights off in the corridors and I thought they
wouldn't want to be disturbed. A nurse rushed in, asking loudly what the problem was. When I said
I couldn't sleep, she yelled at me, 'You don't do that!' I apologised for making a mistake and
reiterated that I couldn't get to sleep. Her reply was, 'Just get back in bed.'
A nurse shouted at a patient, telling him to have a shower, change his T-shirt and a shave. The
patient hadn't caused a commotion and was a quiet man. As far as I understand, the man was trying
to arrange to go "on leave" (away from the hospital for a short period to re-adjust to the
community).
A nurse patronised a patient, telling him he needed to get his hair cut and combed. The patient
was in a rock band and liked having curly, dishevelled hair that grew out.
A nurse refused to give me Saneline's number when I asked because he said it was too late to call
them and to wait until the next morning to ask for the number.
An old man who was a patient who sat near a window overlooking the courtyard on the ground below
was shouted at repeatedly by various nurses for allegedly "looking at the women below" and "being
a dirty old man". The man was often incoherent and visibly one of the most mentally ill people on
the ward. No other patient who sat near the same window was treated the same way.
When I asked to use the telephone on the ward that wasn't a payphone, I was only granted use of
it grudgingly and before I was allowed to use it was asked who I was calling. The nurse seemed
to imply it would only be acceptable to be calling a solicitor for a Mental Health Review
Tribunal. The payphone on the ward had no instructions on how to use it and because of this when
I tried making a call, I inserted nearly all my money before I picked up the receiver. This meant
I lost all the money I inserted because the payphone had no slot for returning change.
During every day of my detainment I was approached my nurses telling me it was time for taking
medication or asking me if I was coming for it, despite the fact that the psychiatrist assigned
to me had decided to observe me without medication. Staff only seemed to learn of his decision
through me, after I'd told them.
To get released from a psychiatric ward in England & Wales, you must either receive consent from
your responsible medical officer (psychiatrist) or attempt to challenge the need for you to be
detained in a MHRT (Mental Health Review Tribunal). All patients where I stayed were supplied with an
introductory leaflet with an address for a MHRT. A patient can only be granted access to a tribunal
within the first two weeks of their section order, meaning time is of the essence in applying for
one. I wrote to the local MHRT but luckily was released the next day. I later received my letter
I'd written back at my place of residence in the community, marked "addressee has gone away".
During my detainment, it was summertime. Many of the catering staff in the hospital were on leave
for holidays. It resulted in less food being cooked and on some occasions the staff's canteen in
the main hospital outside of the ward was not serving food as usual. As such, the staff sometimes
shared food with the patients, even though if every patient ate food prepared by the hospital at
every mealtime there wouldn't be quite enough for each patient. One staff member, a senior nurse,
was frustrated and bullied one of the kitchen staff members, questioning her with derision as
though to imply it was partly her fault when it was obviously a lack of staff, and therefore poor
management that was the failure.
Because of the heatwave in England during my stay in the ward, the heat inside was unbearable.
For the sake of preventing suicides and escapes, windows only opened about 3 or 4 inches on the
Makerfield Unit. In some instances the heat was terribly oppressive. In the toilets the windows
didn't open at all and the fans operating in them were ineffective at generating cool air and
couldn't efficiently rid the toilets of the smell of excrement.
The toilets on the ward had grey floors with patterns of black dots decorated on them making it
difficult to discern traces of excrement or urine. I'm not sure which surface the floors were
made of but it wasn't an appropriate one. Dried urine stuck to it. The toilets would have been
much more comfortable to use if they had had plain tiled floors so that stains could be removed
easier and detected without difficulty.
There were very few activities available in the ward. An activities room opened daily and was
staffed by two nurses between Monday-Friday but the activities available were the same every week
and were mostly arts and crafts with the odd exception like a game of bingo. A computer was
available but it was years out of date and wouldn't have been able to run modern games. There
should be provision for activities that help patients' health such as a gym room to encourage
physical exercise which is proven to make people feel happier.
You might think I'm complaining an awful lot. It's worth bearing in mind, though,
that I was detained in a low secure mental health unit. People considered a danger to the public
aren't put there usually. The conditions in my ward were a lot better than those in prisons, so
people may say, 'Well, what are you moaning about then?' Well, the vast majority of mentally ill
people aren't criminals nor violent therefore punishment in any form, including deprivation can't
be ethically acceptable, surely. I am arguing that there needs to be renovation of the Leigh
Infirmary Makerfield Unit and all other mental health wards on site too. I don't know what wards
for mentally ill people are like in other hospitals but save for a few built recently I imagine
they're similarly awful.
I don't know how the necessary changes in making psychiatric wards more homely and healthy to
live in can be achieved. I'm only writing here to make it clear publically of my view that they
need changing. It'd be my loss not to, because I know I'm very mentally ill* and will probably be in
and out of psychiatric wards for the rest of my life. However, I'm equally supportive of the idea
that far fewer people should be detained in institutions. I have been put in twice for being, in the
words of a psychiatrist, "A danger to yourself, quite vulnerable ... when you come into contact with
other people, I'm worried what might happen to you.' In the first instance, I'd taken an overdose but
not one powerful enough to require having my stomach pumped. I didn't behave suicidally during my
three days in a Medical Assessment Unit in Manchester Royal Infirmary and was therefore no longer
considered a threat to myself. In the second instance I was detained only for explaining my delusional
beliefs to police officers and afterwards a social worker and two psychiatrists, for acting in a
bizarre manner and attempting to escape the general hospital in which I was being assessed several
times.
Instead of depriving me of freedom for a period, and making the taxpayer foot the bill of keeping me
heated, fed and under a roof, why not let me live independently by investing in more intensive support
in the community? Such an approach would be preventative, and preventative health care where it has been
employed elsewhere has proven to save money by diverting potential crises which are costly to treat.
Would any of you like to comment on the issues I've written about here? I'd like to say, I welcome comments
from all members and guests alike. I'd like you to debate but I appeal to you not to fight if possible. I'm afraid
I won't be able to read any of your replies or respond because my mental illness prevents me from being able
to interact with others in most circumstances due to elaborate fears.
*Asperger's syndrome, a neurological a-typicality (as opposed to mental illness), is all I'm diagnosed
with at the moment. Some believe I may be diagnosed with manic depression. Kay Redfield Jamison
(born June 22, 1946) is an American professor of psychiatry and writer who is one of the foremost
experts on bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression), from which she herself suffers.
In her book, Touched With Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., writes:
The clinical reality of manic-depressive illness is far more lethal and infinitely more complex than
the current psychiatric nomenclature, bipolar disorder, would suggest. Cycles of fluctuating moods and
energy levels serve as a background to constantly changing thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. The illness
encompasses the extremes of human experience. Thinking can range from florid psychosis, or "madness", to
patterns of unusually clear, fast and creative associations, to retardation so profound that no meaningful
mental activity can occur. Behavior can be frenzied, expansive, bizarre, and seductive, or it can be
seclusive, sluggish, and dangerously suicidal. Moods may swing erratically between euphoria and despair or
irritability and desperation. The rapid oscillations and combinations of such extremes result in an
intricately textured clinical picture.
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