Woman evicted from NHS hospital ward after being stuck for 18 months

[SerendipityJane]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c897ew0ekp4o

Then she needs to be dealt with via the criminal justice system if the issues are criminal (not sure if reference to the police is due to that)

My mum started dialing 999 on the middle of the night, asking for an ambulance as she had 'chest pain' (the magic words). When the paramedics arrived, it'd turn out that she'd phoned them because the carers hadn't answered her call button (she was in an extra care flat with a carers office downstairs). So when they arrived she'd just ask them to pick up a book she'd dropped, or get her a drink.

Unsurprisingly, eventually the ambulance service put a note on her number so that if she called again, the call handler would call the carers first to check if there was actually an issue. She soon stopped calling them.

And yes, she had capacity.

.
Hideous man.
Just the fact that he was wanting to read and fantasise about such things is mega worrying.

I'm glad your mum had the sense to kick his sorry arse out of the house.

I believe you can be prosicuted for 'wasting police time' this should exsist for really clear cut cases like this of ambulance time wasting as well.

Diagnostic criteria changes over the years, theories and practice change, scientists make discoveries.

If the criteria is so definitive then why question the diagnoses made for those who are EUPD and think that they should be ASD, or vice versa

Neither condition is diagnosed with physical tests like blood tests or scans, these are possible at the moment. For all we know that could change in time

Im simply making the point that people seem to think that what is being practiced today and considered today, is not set in stone and may well change in years to come. Just like there has been change over past decades.

The time and effort and cost involved in that, plus that the defence would be that the person was vulnerable/not responsible etc etc would be very unlikely for the NHS or police to take this action

Thats why its so rare

I think maybe the describer 'public servant' doesn't help.

I've been on the recieving end of this having once been angrily told that I was a 'servant of the public' ironically while I was in fact an unpaid volunteer.

It can be done though

https://www.secamb.nhs.uk/worthing-man-convicted-of-making-more-than-a-thousand-nuisance-calls-to-nhs/

There have been various schemes over the years to help deal with people who use a lot of emergency services. There was one that was targeted at people (women) with BPD, called Serenity Integrated Mentoring. Google it, and have a read. I was under it... I was one of 11 people (women) in my NHS trust. It basically criminalised MH crisis.
It has been shut down now, thank goodness.

That's not quite the same though, that's somebody giving false names etc to be a nusance.
I'm taking about calling ambulances out so somebody can pass them the remote control, or pick up a book from the floor.

I didnt say it wasnt done, I said it was rare. The odd conviction is a drop in the ocean, people like this are causing nuisances all over the country, morning noon and night

@soupyspoon it's disgraceful to suggest ASD and EUPD are in any way comparable.

Many people with ASD are extremely empathetic, kind, sensitive. Also highly independent, it's highly correlated with superior intellectual ability. Many of our most successful people in science, business, law, medicine have ASD.

The two are not remotely comparable and this is extremely ignorant and offensive.

They overlap a lot... and a lot of women with EUPD have had their diagnosis challenged and changed to ASD. Imagine being on heavy duty meds for years, when you didn't need to be.

If the criteria is so definitive then why question the diagnoses made for those who are EUPD and think that they should be ASD, or vice versa.

The behaviour of one may mimic the other but the underlying reasons are very different.

We can also carry out a form of duck testing: if the adjustments and coaching for autism help someone, but the dialectical behavioural therapy and psych meds for EUPD doesn't, they are autistic not EUPD.

90 year olds paralysed by a stroke tend not to get prosecuted.

But yes, I was absolutely furious with her.

Why is the standard of care so bad that people aren't getting a reasonable turn-around time on a task that most of us take for granted being able to do instantly?

(You don't need to answer: Govt cuts.)

I’m a MH nurse who specialises in difficult to treat EUPD and I have supported many service users similar to Jessie.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate I disagree. IMO pretty much everyone, diagnosed with EUPD or not, can benefit from some aspects of DBT. We live in a society in which “sitting with” our emotions is heavily discouraged and many people really struggle to recognise what they are feeling and why; helping people do to this is a key part of DBT. Additionally, considering that many individuals with ASD also struggle with emotion recognition (alexithymia) DBT, alongside ASD specific support, may also be useful for them.

Regarding Jessie, cases like this are very very difficult. I suspect that the local acute mental health wards have done absolutely everything they can to avoid admitting her. Often patients like this end up staying on mental health wards for years (the record in my trust is 5 years (!)), are extremely violent to staff, consume huge amounts of resources and, generally, make the ward a less pleasant place to be for both staff and patients. It’s particularly difficult because all the specialist EUPD units are aimed at rehab/learning how to live in society, and so have time limited stays (usually about 2 years). If someone is incapable of managing this, then care is the only answer-but that means finding a provider that can “meet need”, otherwise they stay on the ward. Capacity is also an issue. While it doesn’t say so explicitly, in cases like this there is usually an element of LD or a physical health condition like type 1 diabetes that means either capacity fluctuates or the risk is just too high. Cases like this are never ever straightforward and the resolution is usually messy and expensive.

They overlap a lot...

No, they really don't.

Quite opposite presentations in many aspects.

That's not to say there aren't people who have both conditions, or course there will be like with many other medical conditions.

But autism in women is characterised by being highly sensitive, hyper-aware of the feelings of others, rejection-sensitivity dysphoria, a quiet and rather shy disposition generally not being entitled and demanding (in fact usually putting their needs last), being highly empathetic, needing lots of downtime alone to pursue interests and reset emotionally (the opposite of these personality disorders often resulting in narcissism and attention seeking and selfishness).

It's completely false to claim that the two are remotely similar based on the medical research. Some ignorant people may conflate them and misdiagnose. Some people with personality disorders may be seeking autism diagnoses incorrectly (or indeed, even some clinicians providing such an erroneous diagnosis because it's more palatable to the patient and/ or their family) but in reality they are very different conditions with different causes and different symptoms.

But autism in women is characterised by being highly sensitive, hyper-aware of the feelings of others, rejection-sensitivity dysphoria, a quiet and rather shy disposition

This does not describe me or any of the autistic women I know, and I do not think you will find that description in DSM-5 diagnostic criteria

@Sukhareva Both EUPD and ASD can present with difficulties in recognising emotions and bodily sensations, as well as being unaware of how to manage those sensations effectively to manage their own needs. Individuals with both EUPD and ASD may self harm, dissociate and experience eating difficulties and difficulties with interpersonal relationships. I think you underestimate how tricky picking the two apart can be-plus, not all people with ASD are quiet and not all people with EUPD loud!

IMO pretty much everyone, diagnosed with EUPD or not, can benefit from some aspects of DBT.

I crashed and burned at the basic "mindfulness" bit. For some autistic people, mindfulness is a terrible intervention. All the annoying little stimuli that I was managing to filter out, like the care label in the side seam of my shirt and the toe seams of my socks and the traffic noise and my feet being iceblocks, the mindfulness session leader has just instructed me to pay attention to by "body scanning", and it's going to take me ages to stop noticing them again.

When it got to "does the emotion have a colour?" "what shape is it?", I literally didn't understand the questions because I don't experience emotions as having colours, shapes, spins, or directions of travel.

By contrast, it's been life-changing to research what other autistic people do to cope with the world and give myself permission to wear my socks inside out, wear sunglasses and ear plugs, cut the labels out of my clothes, use music to self-regulate, and (most importantly) say "no" to social events and generally limit human contact.

You are still implying the NHS has to suck it up and put up with it while spending hundreds of thousands of ££s (as I now understand it) in the High Court to get her moved, meanwhile also tolerating appalling behaviour, bed losses and other patients well-being and safeguarding being at risk- all because she and patients like her are allowed to decide what they will and will not do. It shouldn't have to be a court case- it is a medical decision. A team of medical professionals make an informed decision she needs to leave and a place is identified and she is moved- sedated if necessary. If she becomes violent she is taken to a secure care facility place and locked up.

I am so sick of how we allow the rights of some- loud, aggressive, challenging, shouting about some kind of syndrome/disorder/special situation/awful background to over-ride the rights of those of us who who are quiet, work hard, pay our way, never break the law, are well-behaved, treat others with courtesy, contribute to society and the tax system and benefit least from that. When do we put the people who do the right thing first?

When do we put the people who do the right thing first?

We don't. The point of human rights is that we all have them, not just "the people who do the right thing", and we get prioritised according to need. This patient needed somewhere to live prior to discharge, unlike the other patients on the ward.

It shouldn't have to be a court case- it is a medical decision. A team of medical professionals make an informed decision she needs to leave and a place is identified and she is moved- sedated if necessary.

Sedating someone and moving them against their will would be assault and kidnapping, both criminal offences, unless the patient is under section. This patient was not under section. Committing criminal offences is not "a medical decision" and, if you think that evicting a patient is expensive, the civil and criminal defence fees, fines, and compensation for assaulting and kidnapping a patient would be considerably higher and cost the medical staff their careers.

The thing about human rights is that if the unlikeable people are denied their rights, the rest of us can be too after that. It's called "setting legal precedent".

I have dealt with lots people with personality disorders … they differ as much as you and me. People with EUPD almost always have a history of trauma. Many people have trauma but most of those don’t develop EUPD.
My guess for Jessie is that someone was enabling her …who was bringing the biscuits and crisps… the inference was it was her Mum.. who was probably terrified of her. I hope her Mum got support.
i wish there was someway we could intervene early , once what was happening became obvious .. it’s hard because the diagnosis ( in my experience) is always made late… once personality characteristics are set.
i feel incredibly sorry for staff and other patients who dealt with her.. it sounds like a nightmare. It is probably also a nightmare for her… her behaviour so ingrained that changing it seems impossible.

**
Diabetic socks.

I'm not diabetic, but cannot bear uncomfy socks or shoes.

I buy diabetic ones- soooo comfy. {no seams and no bitey elastic cuffs which even as a child drove me nuts}

I've cut labels out of clothing for years, too.