To think mental health units are often made out to be a helpful place for recovery

[Canwe666]

Dd 19 was in one recently it was awful patients were verbally abusive to her. She was restrained and ended up very bruised. The staff were very hands on. Little to do and generally she found it unhelpful. Aibu to think that mental health units are rarely place for healing and recovery.

YANBU
Ive visited them and worked with those who work in them
Theyre awful

They don't have the capacity to be for healing and recovery, and especially for people detained there they can't be medium -long term solutions. They are "places of safety" for those inpatient, and recovery takes place in the community. But too often the care in the community is stretched as well...

I was on a psychiatric ward a few years ago. They are horrible places. Nothing to do, always feels like it’s about to kick off, and many of the male staff were quite frankly creepy. They are most definitely not a healing environment.

Don’t get me wrong there so amazing staff in her ward but unfortunately a lot of awful ones to. When I spoke to them they also looked right through the staff as if I wasn’t there she said the same thing. She says they basically throw her on the floor to which upsets me.

YANBU. I’ve had a number of stays on NHS psych wards since 2003 and they have just got worse and worse. It is 100% NOT a therapeutic environment and often it’s not even a particularly safe one. The staff are so busy with paperwork that they have no time to talk to and get to know the patients let alone treat them. There is next to no therapy or activity groups and you are locked out of your room all day so have to spend time in a communal room doing nothing. The last one I was in, the layout was so bad that the refectory and living rooms were’t visible from the nurses office. This resulted in a young female patient being held up against a wall by her neck by a much larger psychotic male patient. It was the patients who had to call staff and patients who ultimately broke the altercation up.

I’m lucky now that I have private health insurance which covers mental health IP treatment. I got more care in the first hour I was in a private hospital than I did in 10 days on an nhs ward. It’s shocking!!

My Mum has been sectioned multiple times over the years

It’s been when she’s psychotic and she’s kept long enough until she is medicated and stable enough to be sent home. Meaning that she is no longer of harm to others or herself, but no where near normal or recovered.

From her last visit which was a number of years ago the ward was single sex but the

That’s awful luckily dd was in a female only ward but it was still scary.

facility was mixed sex

My mum befriended a number of these men who then visited once she was home and it turned out they had issues with crack cocaine. Started off hanging out then begging money and then smoking it in her flat.

Thankfully she had the sense to see this, kick them out and have nothing to do with them. But I have always been very angry that my mum was put in a facility with them. Later learned that this is a common issue with potential for very serious consequences

YANBU.

I have never understood why anyone would think that the best place for someone who is struggling with their mental health to be would be on an underfunded, understaffed ward - full of other people with their own serious issues.

They are often scary, unfriendly, lonely places to be. I speak as someone with a close relative who has been in and out of MH units for years.

Suppose that’s the thing as acute wards have such a wide range of conditions in them it can’t really be right to put all them people together.

On the whole I'd say YANBU, but there are a few that are decent. I've worked in many and I often thought that certain places would make people's mental health worse if anything. There are little to no activities on offer, and units are usually short staffed. Mental health provision in the UK is dire.

So dire. And so many people dealing with acute drug-induced issues, it's no place for a young person trying to deal with anorexia or a suicidal vulnerable older woman, for example - there's just nowhere for people to go.

When my then-DH was very mentally unwell I tried to get him crisis care, and even though he was scaring me, he begged to come home and I didn't feel I could leave him there, it was an awful place and he is a big mixed race man, it seemed that they were so hard on him even though he posed no physical risk to anyone but himself.

It's awful. Mental health funding is always one of the first to have cut backs, but they are the ones who are in most need of more funding. It's quietly swept under the carpet as it's something that has a lot of stigma attached to it, and people seem almost afraid to admit to/talk about it. There is a HUGE mental health crisis going on, and things only seem to be getting worse.

I've only ever been involved with units for young people and young adults.

They are the most depressing places I have ever been. No one I have ever been involved with has come out 'better'.

Yadnbu. They just want to medicate and numb patients until they are no longer a harm to themselves or others. Absolutely no therapy or healing. Just awful.

I have never been on an acute adult ward, but I was recently on a Mother and Baby Unit and I would say that my experience was generally positive. The nurses did have time for the patients, the nursery nurses were on hand to help with the babies, there were activities that you could join in with, but there were times where it was quite quiet and, if it hadn't been for the fact that I was informal and could go out, I would have found that very hard. I do suspect that having babies in the unit did lift the atmosphere as, even on bad days, there was joy and enthusiasm in the nursery, even if it was just between the staff and babies. There was probably a greater level of supervision and monitoring (although subtly) because there were babies there.

I was in one for 4 days, about 15 years ago and it was a 'place of safety' in the respect that I couldn't attempt suicide again.
It was not a therapeutic and mentally healthy environment though at all, and in fact quite a frightening and disruptive place.

YANBU

FrumpyBetty Where I am these only Camhs units then people go to an adult ward at 18

I'm sad to hear, they don't seem to have changed, considering 30 plus years has passed since I had a placement as a student nurse.

The lighting & noise in the modern units is awful. Really bad if you have sensory issues.

Yes the lighting is very bright especially when they keep turning the lights on and off when she was sleeping

As few years ago I was put in a place called the Acute day unit which is basically the step to see if you could recover before going as an in patient or after being released from hospital I spent everyday there and they did dance classes, yoga, mindfulness, and many more you could choose what classes you attended they had an on site psychiatrist provided lunch and just had a room which you could make yourself tea and coffee I honestly believe if I hadn’t been offered this I would’ve ended up detained under the mental health act as I would have never gone wllingly whilst my medication was being changed and I was in a bad place. I received a letter the other day saying for financial reasons they are not reopening after this lockdown basically there is now just crisis team and a&e I felt greatly sad for everyone who would have benefits from it and now will not.

Acute mental health units are for people who are very unwell eg psychotic, manic, genuinely suicidal, clinically depressed to the point they can’t function in the community any more.

So yes there will be noise, shouting, verbal abuse from other patients, people trying to tie ligatures or being restrained because they’re refusing medication and are a danger to themselves or others without it.

They’re not convalescence, calm, therapeutic type places offering lots of 1:1 talking and therapy (unless you pay privately for such a place).

Staff generally care but they’re pressured for time and resources.

Most inpatient units have therapy groups although these activities are limited and may not be to everyone’s taste eg art, yoga, gym, walking groups, some psychological group therapy.

I agree. I have worked in many including acute and rehab, and they are not pleasant. Often they have too many patients for the amount of staff they have, and there will always be very severely unwell people in, which can make the whole environment volatile for everyone. Staff are trained to restrain to prevent injury /incidents, so anyone seeming angry /frustrated could be seen to be dangerous to staff and other patients, so could be restrained.
I have also worked in care homes for the elderly and I have always said I'd rather die than live in one of those.
I wish we could change this to protect our loved ones!