4th & 5th day, 2nd week MH placement
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Imagine this:
You are 19, have never stayed in ANY hospital before and don't know anything about the Mental Health Act. You have seen a psychiatrist in the community for a few weeks and he suggests you coming into a MH hospital for a few days assessment to see if what you are experiencing is depression or bipolar. You agree, pack your own bags and come into hospital voluntarily, accompanied by your mother.
Once in the hospital, you spot some weird looking people and become a little frightened about the 'open ward' which you are staying. It becomes worse as you realise you are in a shared room, and your mother will not be able to stay with you. So you decide staying wasn't such a good idea after all, and tell the staff you will leave with your mother. That's fine, isn't it?? After-all, you did decide to come here all by your self - you can leave at any time can't you?? - WRONG!!
What happened to this girl last Thursday, was her nurse notified the doctor that she was planning to leave. So the doctor consulted with another psychiatrist, who agreed that something called "Assessment Documents" be put in place. Assessment documents are a temporary legal way of making a patient 'Involuntary' while assessment of their mental status is performed. A doctor and a nurse each complete a separate form, stating they believe the person should be kept for 24hrs to assess their mental status. Then the doctor went back to the girl to explain it to her.
How would you react to being told you coudn't leave a hospital you had voluntarily entered??
The girl started yelling and crying and trying to pick up her suitcase and walk out the door. She then made a mistake of threatening self-harm if they kept her in. Unfortunately, she wouldn't have realised that is the worst thing she could have done, was threaten to harm herself (or anyone for that matter). It just gave the doctor and nurse conviction that they had done the right thing.
So Security were called, and we waited outside while one of the male MH nurses went into her room and talked to her nicely about going to our secure unit. Because she had been threatening to run away and self harm, they were moving her into the locked section to make sure she couldn't go anywhere. Unfortunately, the locked section is full of crazy people - one in particular would not have been nice for her to meet at all. When he isn't flashing, he is trying to punch someone and usually ends up in the 'seclusion' room each night for a while. The seclusion room has a mattress, padded walls and nothing else.
The male MH nurse finally convinced the girl to go over to the locked section, and he would get a second oppinion on her assessment documents. So the girl had to endure being escorted by her mother, 2 nurses and 2 security men over to the locked MH unit. It is actually called Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). They gave her a chance to calm down in there for a while, and when another person turned up, who was needing a bed in that unit more than the girl, they moved her back onto the open ward. By this time, the open ward had been locked down for the night - so she wasn't going anywhere anyway.
Poor girl - even if she does have Bipolar, that was a terrible experience for her to have, for her first time in any hospital.
On Friday, she was seen by a senior Psychiatrist (a consultant) who decided she would be better off at home, as she usually was not a danger to herself or others and did not wish to stay. That really was the best thing to do. It was one thing that she was willing to come in and be assessed for a few days, but once she changed her mind, it was only if she was a danger to herself or others that would mean she needed to stay.
*********************************************
Friday - last day of placement and last day being a nursing student on a ward!!
There was four of us on the morning shift on Friday. I can't say we did a real lot. A bit of running around for other nurses, a few beds, and chatted to a few patients. That was pretty much it. At 11:45am, we left for lunch and came back at 12:45pm to get ready for our psychosocial presentations at 1:00pm. This went off without a hitch, and we then had a group (14 students) debriefing at 2:00pm. Then I went to the university (which is next door to the hospital) and dropped off my clinical placement paperwork. All done!!
Now to study for exams!!
~
Imagine this:
You are 19, have never stayed in ANY hospital before and don't know anything about the Mental Health Act. You have seen a psychiatrist in the community for a few weeks and he suggests you coming into a MH hospital for a few days assessment to see if what you are experiencing is depression or bipolar. You agree, pack your own bags and come into hospital voluntarily, accompanied by your mother.
Once in the hospital, you spot some weird looking people and become a little frightened about the 'open ward' which you are staying. It becomes worse as you realise you are in a shared room, and your mother will not be able to stay with you. So you decide staying wasn't such a good idea after all, and tell the staff you will leave with your mother. That's fine, isn't it?? After-all, you did decide to come here all by your self - you can leave at any time can't you?? - WRONG!!
What happened to this girl last Thursday, was her nurse notified the doctor that she was planning to leave. So the doctor consulted with another psychiatrist, who agreed that something called "Assessment Documents" be put in place. Assessment documents are a temporary legal way of making a patient 'Involuntary' while assessment of their mental status is performed. A doctor and a nurse each complete a separate form, stating they believe the person should be kept for 24hrs to assess their mental status. Then the doctor went back to the girl to explain it to her.
How would you react to being told you coudn't leave a hospital you had voluntarily entered??
The girl started yelling and crying and trying to pick up her suitcase and walk out the door. She then made a mistake of threatening self-harm if they kept her in. Unfortunately, she wouldn't have realised that is the worst thing she could have done, was threaten to harm herself (or anyone for that matter). It just gave the doctor and nurse conviction that they had done the right thing.
So Security were called, and we waited outside while one of the male MH nurses went into her room and talked to her nicely about going to our secure unit. Because she had been threatening to run away and self harm, they were moving her into the locked section to make sure she couldn't go anywhere. Unfortunately, the locked section is full of crazy people - one in particular would not have been nice for her to meet at all. When he isn't flashing, he is trying to punch someone and usually ends up in the 'seclusion' room each night for a while. The seclusion room has a mattress, padded walls and nothing else.
The male MH nurse finally convinced the girl to go over to the locked section, and he would get a second oppinion on her assessment documents. So the girl had to endure being escorted by her mother, 2 nurses and 2 security men over to the locked MH unit. It is actually called Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). They gave her a chance to calm down in there for a while, and when another person turned up, who was needing a bed in that unit more than the girl, they moved her back onto the open ward. By this time, the open ward had been locked down for the night - so she wasn't going anywhere anyway.
Poor girl - even if she does have Bipolar, that was a terrible experience for her to have, for her first time in any hospital.
On Friday, she was seen by a senior Psychiatrist (a consultant) who decided she would be better off at home, as she usually was not a danger to herself or others and did not wish to stay. That really was the best thing to do. It was one thing that she was willing to come in and be assessed for a few days, but once she changed her mind, it was only if she was a danger to herself or others that would mean she needed to stay.
*********************************************
Friday - last day of placement and last day being a nursing student on a ward!!
There was four of us on the morning shift on Friday. I can't say we did a real lot. A bit of running around for other nurses, a few beds, and chatted to a few patients. That was pretty much it. At 11:45am, we left for lunch and came back at 12:45pm to get ready for our psychosocial presentations at 1:00pm. This went off without a hitch, and we then had a group (14 students) debriefing at 2:00pm. Then I went to the university (which is next door to the hospital) and dropped off my clinical placement paperwork. All done!!
Now to study for exams!!
~
posted by Ra'Phil | 1:03 pm
1 Comments:
Oh my - that poor girl who had a nasty experience her first time in hospital. I don't think that was a good first experience for her :P Yeah, she'd have been better off at home, I agree.
Hurray for you! Now to study. Good luck and I hope it comes easily to you. You're in the home stretch now :) Yippeeeeeee!!!
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