How many more women will be hurt before this changes?

One of our campaigners has some important questions.

How many more women will be hurt before this changes?  I'm crying out to you here.

I'm seeing my friends sent away.  Hearing the hurt in their voices.  They echo in my head at night.

Why are you doing this to us? You make these changes and don't think it through. You are meant to care for us, but you see pound signs not people.

What will it take for it to change?  A death? Will that be the moment it changes, when you can't ignore it any more. 

When someone says that everything is so shit and there's no one who knows them near by to help, so they call it a day.

I don't think that would do it. You'd find a way to say you weren't involved, that it would have happened anyway.  We'll know better.  We all will.

Enough now.  Enough. Mums away from their kids at Christmas is next on the list.  Daughters and sisters, friends and family ill and alone.

You're heartless in your offices.  Do something.  I'm crying out to you here.

The words of the people hurt by this closure.

We regularly check the stats for this blog.  In the two weeks its been running we've had over 4,500 hits and this is growing daily.  What stands out for us, though, is how people are drawn to the contributions from the people who are affected by this first hand. 

Have a read.  Hear our voice.  We need to be heard.  So do our children.

So I asked my children, "what was it like when I was in hospital?"

Away from family and early release - a husband speaks out.

Clare's story.  A near miss, distressed children and a fear for the future.

Debby's story on the importance of local treatment.

S's Story - Moving female patients out of town is at best ludicrous, at worst, dangerous.

Would I be less likely to get a bed if you publish my name?

Lou's story - Her concerns about being treated away from home.

S's Story - Moving female patients out of town is at best ludicrous, at worst, dangerous.

As our campaign gains wider attention, we are being contacted by more local service users who were not aware of the changes or the campaign to reverse the decision.  One of those service users "S" shares her fears and concerns about this change.

This is more first hand knowledge and experience of how the changes impact on service users and their families.

Dear Beds in the Orchard,

Hope this helps/makes sense as I struggle to write when unwell.

Suggestions that moving female inpatients out of town is not damaging to patients is, at best, ludicrous and at worst dangerous.

I personally know from my struggles with bipolar II, that I can rarely attend meetings with my CPN without the support of my partner and son. They are central to my recovery. If I was shipped out of town there is no way we would have time or means to keep up contact - potentially breaking bonds with my son, that I have fought so hard to rebuild since my PND, PTSD and psychotic episode on the postnatal ward after staff saw fit to (guess what) move me! All against the advice of the MH professionals...

In spite of the rise of stay at home dads and many families successfully co-parenting; my personal experience suggests that in the majority, women run their homes, make decisions regarding children and are better placed to arrange their child's day to day activities - even those women with difficult mental health issues.

For many patients gaining control in a positive way helps their recovery - taking away this option will greatly hinder recovery, increase stress and in turn extend stays in hospital.

This should be about what is best for the patient. If I were to be moved out of town because the help and care I would recieve would be greater then of course I would consider it short term, when I'm at my very worst BUT that isn't happening here and even in the above hypothetical situation I still would need to be moved closer to home as my mental state improved in order to become stable.

For people who struggle with change and need consistency this cruel decision needs looking at again.

Away from family and early release - A husband speaks out

As we've said many times before, the closure of The Orchard to women doesn't just affect the women themselves.  It affects their families and those around them.  This email is from the husband of one service user from our area.

In 14 yrs of using of using mental health services this is the first time I've heard of any spare capacity in the female inpatient provision in Lancaster. It was always rare that a bed would be available for my wife when admission was needed, and a regular occurrence that home leave would lead to loss of a bed. 

When my daughter was 3 years old we had to travel to Kendal hospital for about 6 weeks using public transport, that was difficult, costly and time consuming. Just recently my wife had to be admitted to Burnley due to Lancaster having no spare beds. 

This resulted in poor care provision as the staff had no knowledge of her personality prior to illness or of the best way to deal with her. They then proceeded to discharge her before she had properly recovered causing extreme distress to our family who then had to cope with the aftermath of her actions. 

All of this could have been avoided had local care with those who know her been available, and easy access for her family who have been very proactive in her care and recovery with daily input.

Let's just remind ourselves again that when Keith Dibble was asked "Do you accept that moving these women further away from their families and children could be damaging?"  He replied "We believe not".

We are still telling you that it does.  We have first hand experience that it does.

Start listening Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust.  You are failing in your duty of care to us and we will not go away.

Clare's Story - A near miss, distressed children and a fear for the future.

 In April 2014, I was assessed in A&E under the Mental Health Act.  I’d been depressed for a long time, but the descent was long and slow, until it reached the point where making plans seemed like a perfectly rational thing to do.  Fortunately I had a good friend who knew it was absolutely not a rational thing to do, so she took me A&E with me protesting all the time that no one would believe it and it was a waste of time.

After being assessed by the MH liaison nurse, I was asked if I would go into hospital, but the only bed available was at The Priory in Manchester, a private hospital well over an hour’s drive from where I lived.  I refused as I didn’t want to be so far away from home with no possessions and no means of my husband getting there, as he had our two small children to look after.  In the end they decided not to detain me, but pass me over to the care of the local Crisis Team.

Like Crisis Teams all over the country, they are massively overstretched and a decision was taken to leave me in the care of the community team as I was seeing my psychiatrist the following afternoon.  By mid-morning the following day, I was waiting on the platform of the station for the London express train, however, the same good friend as the day before had sent her husband speculatively to see if I was there. That was the near miss.  If a local bed had been available the day before then I would’ve been in hospital, safe.

Thankfully this time there was a bed in Ridge Lea hospital in Lancaster and I was admitted and stayed there as an inpatient before the hospital was closed and all of the patients transferred to The Orchard, the new unit in Lancaster.  I was in hospital for around 3 months.

The impact of my admission on my family was enormous.  My son has autism and was extremely disrupted by my being away as it changed his routines.  His autism meant that couldn't express how he felt easily, so he got cross every day.  His home to school diary was filled with examples of him being upset by my absence and struggling in school.  My young daughter didn’t remember the last time I’d been admitted as she’d been too young, but this time she was very aware and her behaviour became very difficult as she struggled to come to terms with my being in hospital.  She became clingy to everyone else in the family and anxious that I would never come back.

The only thing that made it better for them was that I was still close by.  My husband bought them up nearly every day after school and nursery and we got to spend time together, even though at the time it took monumental effort for me to be ‘normal’ with them.  As I got better and had leave, I was able to go home to dinner, or do bedtime with them or all the small things that a parent does for a child.  Sometimes this was more for their benefit than for mine as mental illness takes away some of the person you are, but to them it meant everything.

If I had been at a hospital miles away, none of that would have been possible.  My children’s struggles would have been even harder.  The visits would be more sporadic with long journeys to get to see me and the impact of my absence would have been amplified many times over.  At the beginning, my only motivation to get through the day was the obligation I felt to see them.  As I got better, that changed to wanting to see them as I missed them, till eventually I was discharged.

Even when they are unwell; mothers need to be near their children and children need to have regular contact with their mothers.  Isolating me from my children would have caused distress on both sides, but now this is what would happen if I was admitted again. 

Getting ill again already scares me as it has had a huge and lasting impact on my life emotionally and financially and has shaken my whole world.  Now I have the additional fear that if I get ill, I will be taken away from my family, my friends and everyone who means anything to me.  I will be ill, alone and isolated from the very people I need to support me to get well.

Closing The Orchard to women like me, may mean more near misses like mine as they are too scared to take help knowing they will be sent away.  Speaking to other women in the community, I know I am not alone.  Fear when you already have a mental illness is not good.  Not good at all.