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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To find the Stephanie Bincliffe case so shocking

43 replies

Hairsprayqueeen · 02/11/2019 04:40

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/24/hospital-autistic-woman-weight-gain-inquest

I just feel so sorry for her, and her family especially her poor mother. How awfully mistreated she was at such an expense. It's as if we're still in the dark ages. Saw it on the news yesterday and just cant stop thinking about it.

OP posts:
NewYoiker · 02/11/2019 04:47

Good god that's horrible. They had a responsibility to care for her not kill her with food!

EmmaGrundyForPM · 02/11/2019 04:50

Can you make the link clickable?

WatchingTheMoon · 02/11/2019 04:52

"Can you make the link clickable?"

Just copy and paste it

WhoWants2Know · 02/11/2019 05:17

As you read the article, the coroner does point out that none of the traditional weight loss strategies for morbid obesity would have been suitable for her, given the complexity of her condition and tendency towards self harm.

I've worked with many people with severe autism and complex associated behaviours, and working towards a healthy weight is often one of the biggest challenges that carers face. People can have an incredible compulsion to eat (even non-nutritive substances) and be unable to experience satiety.

It's not easy to reduce portion sizes or serve healthy alternatives if it's going to send someone into a state of distress where they injure themselves. And getting someone to exercise when it's presenting a sensory nightmare that they can't understand, can feel like you're torturing them.

I'm not saying that the A&T unit was right in the way that they handled it-- clearly they were in over their heads and needed experts.

But it's a hugely complex situation.

Hairsprayqueeen · 02/11/2019 05:22

I agree whowantstoknow its obviously not something straightforward but, shoved in isolation with a bed pan ? :(

OP posts:
Mummyoflittledragon · 02/11/2019 05:27

Omg this is shocking. Poor woman. It looks as if they fed her whatever she wanted to shut her up because they didn’t have the tools / skills to manage the situation and expert staff to encourage her to exercise.

The link led to a whole load of stories. This one about an autistic woman with an iq of 52, who it was ruled by a judge, should be allowed to have sex with any number of men in her home between 10am and 4pm. Maybe that would teach her a lesson. Wtf. This led to sexual exploitation and could easily have been a story of her death. www.theguardian.com/law/2018/oct/24/judge-criticises-plan-that-let-autistic-woman-have-sex-with-strangers

Then another about failing children and obviously putting them at risk of self harm.

With the awful story of Bethany, which has hit the headlines this week, sadly I think this only scratches the surface.

Hairsprayqueeen · 02/11/2019 06:05

www.mencap.org.uk/press-release/death-young-woman-learning-disability-prompts-call-independent-inquiry

Partial statement from her mum. She's also said all her daughter wanted was to go home.
It makes you wonder what else is going on.

OP posts:
itsgettingweird · 02/11/2019 06:17

Hair she wasn't shoved in isolation with a bedpan. She refused to leave the room.

MH related to autism is extremely complex. It was recognised she was already aver weight when she started. She clearly already had difficulties relating to diet and exercise. You can't starve someone. You can't withhold food. She self harmed if the food wasn't what she wanted.

Obviously the unit were over their heads with how to support her and there will always be the question if another unit could have helped. But severe and complex behaviours related to autism aren't always possible to 'cure'.

Babynamechangerr · 02/11/2019 06:20

It is very sad but I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me. I had a family member who was sectioned and was in a mental health unit for a while, their weight ballooned (medication, crap low grade food and no opportunity to exercise) and there was very little self care. Eventually section released and they're much better now.

Modern day asylums, a lot of people just left to rot in there, very sad.

It's especially sad for these parents if they'd tried to get her moved elsewhere but weren't allowed because she, was under section, so could see their child deteriorate without being able to do anything about it.

Mummyoflittledragon · 02/11/2019 06:21

Christ that makes harrowing reading. I wonder how many more people are stuck in institutions like this. These sound like a modern version of Victorian Lunatic Assylums. The two differences being that they are in solitary confinement. And secondly because their distress in no longer part and parcel of the experience, these inmates are given something, which is not what they need, but something, which will ease the distress.

I know there are no easy answers and I take on board what WhoWants said as I appreciate Im totally naive and clueless on this subject.

Do any other countries deal with this better I wonder?

Bluerussian · 02/11/2019 06:33

As Stephanie was incarcerated for years, did she not have any visitors who would have seen that her situation was not suitable and alerted her family? There may have been a better place with more understanding and experience of autism, for her to stay, hairspray. It really is very sad.

The story from the other link is dreadful and heartbreaking. I feel bleak just reading it, it could be any of us or our loved ones if we had a very low IQ and other problems. It's so easy to exploit people like her.

ShippingNews · 02/11/2019 06:45

Easy to be judgmental here. This must have been a very complex case .

I'm not convinced that bariatric surgery would have been a failure though - a friend of mine had a Biliopancreatic diversion , where the food eaten is not digested, and most of the calories eaten are simply excreted. This leads to weight loss . In Stephanie's case it wouldn't have mattered how much she ate, since most of it would not have been digested.

Fatshedra · 02/11/2019 06:57

This story is 4 years old is what comes up when I click the link.

SandraOhshair · 02/11/2019 07:08

Not everyone can be fixed. Quoting click bait quotes such as 'didn't leave room in 2 years' isn't helpful or allows a proper judgement to be made.

Sleepyblueocean · 02/11/2019 07:10

"This story is 4 years old is what comes up when I click the link."

And this sort of thing is still happening. These units are a nightmare. Cases keep happening because society as a whole doesn't care about it's most vulnerable.

Fatshedra · 02/11/2019 07:21

What's the answer - people have rights now that they didn't in past generations so if she insists on staying in one room there's nothing you can do . So easy to criticise.

zen1 · 02/11/2019 07:25

This story was reported on the news only yesterday. Absolutely appalling www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50252079

Sleepyblueocean · 02/11/2019 07:30

The answer is to provide the right support at the right time. There is very little support available for young people with the sort of challenges this young women has and what there is you have to fight for. The other part of the answer is to provide fit for purpose treatment No one should be in an assessment and treatment unit for years.

bumblingbovine49 · 02/11/2019 07:33

This sounds so difficult

If she refused to move , how do you make her?. If she self harmed if not given the food she wanted what do you do?.

The staff obviously chose the less immediately harmful form of self abuse i.e compulsive eating rather than violent self harm. Whilst I understand they didn't provide the help she needed, it sounds like that was probably impossible in the environment she was in. I assume she was there because she was a danger to others outside that environment?

It is is incredibly sad and I wish I knew the answer but as someone said earlier in the thread - not everyone can be fixed.

KitKat1985 · 02/11/2019 07:43

I imagine it's a complex scenario. As someone who works in a mental health unit, it's very easy to just see one side of the story from reports like these.

Unfortunately our whole mental health service needs massive change from a government level. People like Stephanie Bincliffe generally need manging in small, highly staffed units (maybe even on a 2 staff : 1 resident ratio). But, in my unit for example my HCA staff (who often take the front line for managing very complex care, deal with lots of abuse and aggression, and deal with a lot of stress each day) are usually on minimum wage style salaries, with little recognition and respect. Because of this eventually they leave because they can get paid the same for working anywhere, and for having a lot less stress. I mean would you want to be paid £8.50p/h to be assaulted several times a day? Because that's often the reality for staff working in these units. This means constant issues with staffing, meaning there simply aren't the staff to manage people like Stephanie, and then because it then becomes to dangerous to have very aggressive patients out in communal areas on very short staffed units, they end up getting locked away into seclusion areas.

Until there is a massive government overhaul with better training and wages for staff working in learning disabilities / mental health services, and unit staffing numbers are on safe levels, the same problems will persist.

My advice is that if you want to help people like Stephanie, don't vote Tory, because the cuts to services the past few years means the problems are just getting worse at the moment, not better.

Sleepyblueocean · 02/11/2019 07:49

I don't blame the staff. It lies in the whole lack of provision in the first place and societies 'value' of people like Stephenie.
People would be horrified if young children were treated like this and many of the people with these difficulties are just as vunerable.

Chloe84 · 02/11/2019 07:50

Her poor family. It’s crazy that a centre costing £4.5k per patient per week didn’t know how to help her.

KitKat1985 · 02/11/2019 07:55

The other issue (again, voice of bitter experience here) is that the reason people end up staying in assessment and treatment services long term, is there simply aren't the services in the community for them to move on to. With most care homes / units being privately managed, they can refuse to take whomever they like, which means they tend to turn down anyone that is likely to have care needs so high that it's going to eat into their profit margins. So there's nowhere for people like Stephanie to go to, so they end up stuck in mental health units for years.

oooohcarriewhite · 02/11/2019 07:57

So £4,500 per week
£234,000 per year
£1.638,000 for the 7 years.
Wow, Stephanie brought in over £1 million to Huntercombe. Someone somewhere was making a lot of money off the back of this poor girls vulnerability. Yet, she was locked up with little to no care for 7 years.
Despicable!
We really are living in modern day Victorian times.

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