"Medical ward experience"

I am writing about the horrific experience I had at Bunbury Hospital medical ward. The medical ward is separate from the surgical wards and is in the same building as the APU.

I have only been able to write this now on here as the whole experience was terrifying and I still suffer from its effects. It was the worst week of my life.

The doctor on a&e when I was admitted said I was hallucinating and they had to hold me down for the mri. I eventually plucked up the courage to write to their customer feedback and found out after discussing it with the Nurse Unit Manager that they had given me haloperidol as an injection, lorazepam and Quietiapine, not in my discharge notes, which possibly explains my confusion as I feel I was drugged up to the eyeballs with anti psychotics.

I have a contra indication on my medical records for Valium. I had a terrible nightmare that night and woke up screaming. The doctors there said I was hallucinating which I have no prior medical history of.

Valium gives me nightmares and shortness of breath. My GP has now put haloperidol in my records as not to be given. My GP had no knowledge of this entire event.

There were 3 other patients in the ward, none of whom, as I understand it, had medical issues. They had psychiatric issues. I couldn’t leave the ward or hospital without discharge papers. My partner visited me and I begged them to take me home but they said they couldn't.

The second night, the night duty nurse came on shift and told us we couldn’t use the bathroom we had to lie in bed in our night diapers all night so I had to urinate and poo in it. I had been put on diuretics and laxatives as part of my alcohol treatment. They told us we couldn’t sit up and dangle our legs over the edge of the bed. I did do that once and they immediately called me by name to tell me stay in bed and lie down. When the nurse came to my bed later for obs I was very distressed and told the other nurse I didn’t want that first nurse to touch me, so I never saw them on the ward again. I did see that nurse once more when they came to watch the ambos taking me out to transfer me to another hospital. The sense of relief getting out of there was overwhelming.

I believe that nurse was on their own, only the other patients knew what was going on.

I will never forget their cruelty and what I felt was neglect, I believe I am permanently scarred from it.

Food threat.

A certain nursing assistant told me if I didn’t eat my dinner I wouldn’t be able to leave.

I was not allowed to leave the ward at all. In my opinion the food was appalling. I didn't even have a jug of water.

I was diagnosed with pneumonia whilst there and that has now gone. I was coughing incessantly for weeks afterwards.

The air stank of something earthy and unpleasant in the ward and I could smell it on my skin and clothes for weeks afterwards.

During my stay at Bunbury on one day I was given a large dose of ivf fluids, so much that I recall I put on 4-5 kilos in one day.

After persistent requests to the doctor to go to another hospital they accepted my admission.

Treated at the second hospital and because of the use of adult diapers for long periods at Bunbury the area was red raw and inflamed. Left after a week, but I had developed ascites had very large water weight gain after iv fluids at Bunbury. My doctor told a&e at the other hospital I needed to come in urgently. I went in a few months after the week at Bunbury and I was there for nearly 2 weeks as they gave me laxatives and diuretics to flush out the water and vitamins to help my liver recover. I made a lot of progress there, I was in my own room and the staff were wonderful. No anti psychotics administered the hospital focussed on the physical needs

I am still far from convinced about the clinical diagnosis. I believe it was incomplete. I had pneumonia symptoms diagnosed at Bunbury on an X-ray which showed a shadow on the base of my lung.

Pneumonia and UTI's can cause hallucinations and delirium in older patients. I had dry coughing fits, night and day for weeks afterwards. The co morbidity issues with pneumonia were not discussed with me, but I was given oral antibiotics.

As I understand it, my treatment was based on mental psychoses. Not physical diagnoses.

Who made the decision to admit me to the psychiatric ward? That's what it was, not a medical ward and I feel that's very misleading. None of the other patients had surgical issues.

There was a doctor from Bunbury who visited me at the other hospital for the week I was there in when I was transferred from Bunbury. I feel they were checking up on me constantly to the point of annoyance in fact I felt very uncomfortable with it but said nothing. Just remembered thinking how creepy I feel the doctor was and patronising.

I am not satisfied with the ‘all my issues were to do with alcohol’ response it feels like victim blaming. I feel I was treated very cruelly by that nurse in the Medical ward. When they demanded I stay in bed all night there was no other nurse there. The trauma lives with me still. As I write this the memory of it is very triggering.