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Mental Health care

Posted By bargaincp34

"Mental Health care"

About: Bentley Hospital / Mental Health

(as a parent/guardian),

I have a family member who has been in the MH ward. I believe staff do not speak with the patients, and are often in a 'fishbowl' area with patients milling around trying to speak with the nurses who in my opinion, will often refuse to make eye contact with them.

Most of the staff (with a few small exceptions) are extremely rude in my opinion, to both patients and family members. I believe, they do not have a clue about person-centred respect, nor the recovery framework and the psychiatric team have utterly no respect for either the Mental Health Act or the Carer Recognition Act.

I even had the clinical team tell my carer advocate to be quiet and let the doctor talk because they were refusing to allow me (the primary caregiver) the speak. If this is reflective of the way the entire hospital works, I feel it needs a massive overhaul. In my opinion, they don't help the patients  - they compound the problems and the biggest conflict for a carer when the clinical treatment team is basically neglecting your 'person' is that if they are suicidal, then I feel you can't afford to take a strong stand to them and take them to task because then the person you care for is left with nothing beyond yourself, and they worry about being a burden to their carer.

The psychiatric team especially need to be given a massive overhaul in my opinion, and intensive training in communicating with family caregivers. On the other hand - I feel the students that visit from the universities demonstrate greater empathy and awareness of their responsibilities under the law and care for patients than the paid staff in my opinion.  

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Responses

Response from Joel Gurr, Executive Director Clinical Service Strategy and Population Health, Subscriber: CE Executive Leadership Group, East Metropolitan Health Service 3 years ago
Joel Gurr
Executive Director Clinical Service Strategy and Population Health, Subscriber: CE Executive Leadership Group,
East Metropolitan Health Service

Submitted on 22/09/2020 at 4:18 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 4:24 PM

Dear bargaincp34,

I am deeply sorry to hear of your recent experience with our mental health service during what must be a distressing time for you and your family member. It is unacceptable for any patient or their family to be left feeling they have been treated rudely or ignored by staff. Our aim is to include and involve carers where possible. This underpins both the Mental Health Act and the Carers Recognition Act and I apologise this was not your experience.

Without further information, I am unable to comment on your specific situation. To enable us to assist in resolving your concerns and ensure we have the opportunity to make meaningful service improvements I would strongly encourage you to contact our Consumer Engagement Unit on (08) 9224 1637, 8 am to 4 pm Monday – Friday or email RPBG.feedback@health.wa.gov.au.

I thank you for taking the time to share your story and hope that your loved one’s recovery is progressing well.

Best wishes

Joel Gurr

A/Executive Director

Royal Perth Bentley Group

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by bargaincp34 (a parent/guardian)

Hi Joel,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my complaint publicly. I have already submitted a complaint formally through the hospital process and am currently pending a response (without going into detail here - I understand the delays).

However, in my opinion, carer exclusion remains problematic currently in regard to the Case Management of the person I care for. I find it disturbing that within Australia, the Federal Mental Health Commission has been pushing to have the Recovery framework implemented which I believe was constructed based on evidence gathered through the World Health Organsiation and where the research supported people with mental illness have better recovery outcomes when there is carer inclusion - I believe it helps to build a holistic picture of what is going on for the patient so that people can work together in partnership and as a team for the best possible outcomes for the 'patient'.

The exclusion of carers means that in my opinion, we know that the Clinical teams are not fully informed about what is happening for the patient - especially if there is a cognitive impairment, memory is compromised and so forth.

The patient might not remember to give important and vital information and I believe often new symptoms start to appear and so forth. I am still unable to give the information through to the clinical teams. I'm sure that we can all do better.

I know that I was very deeply distressed at the time I posted my comment on here, and the experience at the Ward completely rocked my faith and trust in Clinicians to provide adequate and appropriate care for my family member. It potentially traumatises the family members - we know that we don't have the clinical expertise and the conduct by clinicians means that we (speaking for myself of course) feel we can no longer trust the clinicians to provide adequate and appropriate care. It is very distressing in my opinion.

Part of me wants to tell my loved one to stop doing anything the team has suggested (because I believe the treatment is not 'informed care'), however, I recognise that realistically - it might be important of the person to continue with the medication and I then end up in a space of cognitive dissonance myself, I have often wondered if these types of clinicians are aware that their practice is, in my opinion, oppressive toward carers.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I sincerely hope that we can commence the process of change finally - because this is a situation that was visited in 2013 when the Recovery framework was launched. I'm disappointed seven years later I believe carers are still having to fight to be heard, respected and included.

Kind Regards,

(Name withheld to protect the privacy of the person in care).

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