"Youth Mental Health Unit"

My experiences at the youth mental health unit have been overall very disappointing. A key issue is access to visitors on the ward, as the rooms are often booked out, meaning you can't have visitors meanwhile the two consult rooms remain empty which is very frustrating. 

Additionally, this ward appears to lack MDT input, particularly in relation to clin psych, as in a two week stay I didn't see one despite requesting to.

The ward has a group program on the wall, however the reality is half of the groups do not occur as I understand staff are busy working on other wards, as such, I believe the ward isn't a very therapeutic environment and leaves patients very bored, often leading to further escalation.

I felt that the lack of structure in day-to-day activities severly impacts the therapeutic benefit that could be gained from spending time in an inpatient environment. From conversations with staff I was told the youth ward often didn't have groups ran as the staff prioritise the wards with higher patient numbers. In my opinion, this isn't acceptable as understaffing of allied health professionals should not have an impact on the experience of service that adolescents and young adults receive. 

Additionally, when placed on forms under the Mental Health Act, the ward staff failed to provide me with information about my rights as an involuntary patient, and failed to provide me with my forms in a timely manner. 

It is very disheartening for me to see such a beautiful facility have such a negative experience seemingly due to the way the ward is ran, and the lack of therapeutic services available to patients. This makes it feel like wasted infrastructure, that simply provides containment for high-risk patients with minimal positive clinical outcomes.

Additionally it seems access to the ward is very limited, with young people often waiting up to a week in ED before being moved to the ward, leading to further distress and deterioration in their mental state. This doesn't seem to make sense, as the ward is often not at capacity despite patients waiting in ED.