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

[SerendipityJane]

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

Suicide or accidental - drugs, accidental overdose, forgetting vital meds, infection or illness and not getting appropriate medical care etc etc.

Because she comes across as an extremely difficult person who refuses to help herself and nothing is ever good enough for, I understand bpd. The article didn't say 'needs' a wheelchair, it said 'uses' a wheelchair, it made me wonder if she refuses to walk rather than can't walk.

How do you police that though? My parent had significant mental illness, the other has a learning disability.

I probably cost people a fair bit in my teens when I had some difficulties of my own. However, I now work full time in highly specialist role with two degrees supporting people like my parents. I chose my job directly because of my parents and my teenage years.

Should my mum have been sterilised so she couldn’t give birth to me?

If assisted suicide is made legal here I wonder if people like her would be offered it? People with severe mental issues are offered it in several other countries.

Some of the replies on this thread are shocking, straying into eugenics territory.

There's one thing having a pragmatic conversation about realistic provision for the vulnerable. Quite another to start musing whether it would be better for society if they were sterilised or somehow not be a 'drain' on resources for the next 50 years.

Makes "Little Britain" a documentary ...

Nobody should be able to block a hospital bed that they do not need for medical reasons, if they are offered an alternative.

It’s going to turn into 40 bloody pages of that, judging by other recent MN threads on the same topics. People say there isn’t a discriminatory attitude towards mental health; there very much is if it isn’t a little touch of anxiety in a nice middle class family.

Do you think for some mentally ill patients, institutions are the best place? They would receive regular meals, have drugs administered correctly and would be safe. Sometimes I think giving people choices and the ability to refuse what may be in their best interests is unwise.

I took think that once medically fit to discharge the patient/family must accept the first social care placement offered.

If it's in a not nice town, or too far from the train/bus/family/whatever, has crap food, rude nurses or whatever the reason would be for saying no ...then a new placement can be looked for.

I've seen bed blockers whose families have turned down 30+ care homes for their elderly parent, this keeping them up n hospital for another year and saving the care home fees - which some families were quite honest about 'why should dad have to pay, he's paid tax his whole life blah blah'

Bed blocking should be stopped.

That’s exactly what I thought. To be able to send threatening emails requires a certain amount of ability.

She should have been removed by the police much sooner than 18 months, it’s a shame she doesn’t like the town her new flat is in but as 120 other places wouldn’t have her she has to take what she can get. It sickens me that people like me are working full time in stressful jobs to pay taxes for the money to be wasted on people like this, but I suppose the alternative is worse. No doubt she’ll find some way to get herself admitted back into hospital and start the whole process over again.

No, because it’s too easy for the wrong people to end up employed and start abusing. Having institutions in the first place also makes it too easy to redefine mental illness as ‘being different’ in all manner of ways and opens up the threshold for letting people in. How do we know that the state wouldn’t enforce it for anyone with a learning disability - by saying if you don’t let them go in they won’t pay benefits?

Having institutions is just too easy a way of shutting the problem away and all sorts of shit can happen out of sight out of mind - there’s a reason people fought so bloody hard to shut them down.

How?

It should never have gotten that far. Yes, everyone has a right to a choice over the care they receive, however, when care is immedicately required, that say isnt the priority. She should have been placed in an assessment bed type situation where her needs can be assessed in depth and appropriate placement found.

The article doesnt state any physical illnesses or reasoning for the wheelchair and care needs, this makes most care facilities inappropriate for her. There are factor to consider when the needs are mental health driven only, and the top of that list is the needs of residents already living in care facilities. It is not appropriate for a 35 year old with mental health issues to be living in these spaces. I have witnessed similar, where elderly residents without capacity were taken advantage of by younger reseidents who had capacity. We had one resident left in a hospital in a similar situation when a care home refused them back due to the innapproprite relationships being formed. They were immedicately placed in another care facility.

Hospitals are not care homes, they are not designed to be, staff do not have the time to give the level of care required when dealing with medical needs alongside. This women should have been removed long before it got to the point of needing police to evict. Her right to a say doesnt trump the rights of patients to have their medical needs met in a hospital environment safe for them. This disagreement over her long term care should have happened within a temporary care facility. Its outrageous she was allowed to refuse this for so long.

By making it a case of accept the first placement offered or we discharge you the local social services office as medically fit.

Or yes temporary care facilities - but I think the bed blockers would just camp there instead 🙄

There really is a gap. As evidenced by this article. Very sad but what a fucked up situation

I find mostly it's the opposite, from personal experience and that of friends and family. Hospitals will discharge very unwell patients and send them home at the drop of a hat with no care package when care is very much needed unless they have someone to advocate for them.

This is not the NHS fault. This is because she kept rejecting places offered to her. So in the end they had to go to court to legally evict her.

Another article on this woman says she’s “ Self harming” to move homes.

There will be hard working taxpayers who are living in suboptimal areas, or small flats and houses, but who are working their way up the housing ladder-

If people want a say in where they live, one has to pay for it.

Demanding, self harming, it isn’t going to help this woman, it just makes more care homes not want to take her in.

That’s absolutely appalling that they can bed block like that.Hopefully hospitals will get on track and be able to evict them sooner or let the relatives take them into their own homes to look after them then.

Yes I did my 2 month psyche placement in a similar hospital in the midlands. Rightly or wrongly there were people there who had lived there many years, they were quite comfortable and content, they would never have coped in the community.

@LolaLouise If she refuses to accept a care placement, the NHS legally can not just remove someone who needs care from the hospital. What would they do? Dump her on the side of the road? A court has to agree she can be evicted, which in reality will make her accept a care placement