In light of the recent criticisms of the Victorian Police for their lack of training in dealing with mentally ill people I felt they got a bit of a raw deal.
The many times we have had to call them out to assist with Feral Aspie they have been absolutely superb with immediate help, suggestions, calls to specialsts and hospitals; there was only 1 individual I disagreed with (and followed it up with a phone call to her the next day, sorted it because she was willing to listen) but that was through the misunderstanding Autism/Aspergers/ABI brings with the fluctuating behaviours not fitting into a strict mental health mould.
How often do you think the police escort a person to the nearest public hospital emergency room to get treatment for suicidal/unacceptable behaviours only to watch the person refuse admission/get told to see their private doctor/come back when there's an R in the month and waltz back onto the street - still in an unstable mental status - while the police are still filling in the paperwork for the call-out in the first place?
It happens very, very often.....
The system is not rigged to work for mental health patients; it is for regular, garden variety illnesses and, over the years, the mental health system (with patients, staff and differing problems/laws galore) has been forced to fit in alongside the over-stretched general health model, and now most times inside the over-stretched general health hospitals seeing as public specialist mental health hospitals got flogged off to the highest bidder *ahem*
And, let's be honest here, folks, it's not like the police are likely to be called to attend an afternoon soiree with a mentally ill person, to pass buttered finger buns and sip tea from bone china cups.
No, they usually get called out to help someone who has been let down by the garden variety health system; someone in mental distress who has become out of control for one reason or another.
This is what they are confronted with - the end result of a broken system.
I know I certainly couldn't do their job.
Could you?
Showing posts with label child and adolescent mental health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child and adolescent mental health care. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Ted Baillieu your public mental healthcare sucks hairy dogs balls. Fix it. Yesterday.
I have officially reached the end of my patience.
Not with my son, not with his disabilities or his mental health issues but with the public health/mental health system here in Victoria.
This is where I throw down the gauntlet, where I name and shame the shitful hospitals.
Oh, wait.
There is only ONE shitful hospital.
In my opinion.
Monash Medical Centre at Clayton.
And before you get on your high horses I have worked there in several different depts through nurse agencies.
So, back in April of 2010 we called the police and ambulance to attend my son who was losing the plot.
Both emergency services attended, we went to Monash Medical Centre in Clayton via ambulance WITH police escort.
We got trundled through and then.....we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The poor registrar on duty busted her gut trying to get someone to come down to review Aspie teen...she rang a bajillion bastards but not one of the mongrels, INCLUDING Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, would dare dirty their precious selves in A&E.
So, we went home.
The 2nd time, not quite a month later, the ambos attending made the diagnosis of "Ohh, he's just had a temper tantrum".
Really?
You call smashing a house up, screaming incoherently, frothing at the mouth, wrapping a belt around your neck until you turn blue, climbing a tree and trying to hang yourself with said belt while making random paranoid claims a temper tantrum?
Then we got to Monash Medical Centre where the triage nurse - and, yes, she still works there, go figure - told me (and I quote verbatum)
"We have other children with more urgent needs who have to be seen ahead of your son, you have several hours to wait ahead of you, we can't even guarantee we can get anyone down here to look at him. Go wait in the waiting room."
The waiting room that was overflowing out into the car park.
Yeah, Monash Medical Centre sucks shit.
And, yes, I lodged a verbal complaint which was dealt with UBER pronto by the Director of Paediatric emergency medicine but, gee whiz, the same nurse crapped all over the admission of my Dad a few months later so obviously that "talk" you were going to have with her didn't make a dent on the thick matter between the stupid bint's ears.
Such was the crappy response it actually stopped me from trying to get help for months as I had been told by that useless ambo I HAD to attend Monash Medical Centre, that we DIDN'T get a say in where my child got treated.
We have called headspace, CAMHS, the cops, the ambos, the paediatrician, disability services and Uncle Tom Cobbley.
Some cops wanted to charge Aspie teen, others were more understanding, CAMHS intake worker didn't want to help telling me to get him charged by the police, disability services only got their act together after months of requests when the cops called them on our behalf, headspace felt he was too complex to attend there.
We have been to the Royal Children's Hosp - where the staff totally freakin' rock and run rings around those at Monash Medical Centre.
We have, as you know, recently attended the Royal Children's where they bent over backwards to get Aspie teen seen quicker at CAMHS for a medication review due to the fact he was trying to use knives on himself.
So, today we went to CAMHS stupidly hoping and thinking we were going to get some action, some medication review, something.
Nope.
They didn't even have his old history from his previous attendence there nor the paperwork the headspace psychistrist had copied to fax to them last week.
We got seen, asked a bunch of questions then told in another week or so they'd make a referral to yet another fucking public mental healthcare service "to get a really thorough assessment done".
Cos all the freaking specialists we've seen, the psychologist, the neurologist, the psychiatrists, the paediatrician, the speech therapists, the early intervention therapists and the umpteen counsellors haven't spent months doing 'really thorough assessments' already?
The bulging fucking file, full of reams and reams of documents of assessments, diagnosis', labels, names, treatments, interventions, behaviour management plans, and the eleventy hundred medications used doesn't mean diddly squat?
Because this new mob will do "a really thorough assessment" and rule out "labels no longer current like Aspie Teen's Tourette's"?
Because the freaking Tourette's was ONLY present just this week with his verbal tics in grunting during his anxiety attack at the Royal Children's Hosp, at home, prior to swimming, when shopping, when doing schoolwork?
But this is not current?!
What really pisses me off is the fact that, yes I am fully aware these people are over-worked and under-paid BUT they are in a position where they NEED TO LISTEN to what is being relayed to them.
They NEED to follow through on their DUTY OF CARE, they cannot just go through the motions, they HAVE to listen to the information being told to them.
BECAUSE THAT IS THEIR FUCKING JOB.
And after all this shit of almost 12 months where are we at?
Same old, same old - no medication review, no help, no assessment, nothing.
I have a 14 yr old who is unstable, who is on anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medications which are doing jack shit, he is flipping out and smashing the house up several times each week on average, hurting us as well as himself, attempting to injure himself more and more, has admitted to hearing voices and yet....
Victoria's Mental Health sucks hairy dogs' balls.
Nothing will get done until someone is badly hurt and then the depts will panic, going into overdrive, looking to place the blame with either the victim or the scapegoat who is the lowest rung in the organisation.
Not with my son, not with his disabilities or his mental health issues but with the public health/mental health system here in Victoria.
This is where I throw down the gauntlet, where I name and shame the shitful hospitals.
Oh, wait.
There is only ONE shitful hospital.
In my opinion.
Monash Medical Centre at Clayton.
And before you get on your high horses I have worked there in several different depts through nurse agencies.
So, back in April of 2010 we called the police and ambulance to attend my son who was losing the plot.
Both emergency services attended, we went to Monash Medical Centre in Clayton via ambulance WITH police escort.
We got trundled through and then.....we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The poor registrar on duty busted her gut trying to get someone to come down to review Aspie teen...she rang a bajillion bastards but not one of the mongrels, INCLUDING Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, would dare dirty their precious selves in A&E.
So, we went home.
The 2nd time, not quite a month later, the ambos attending made the diagnosis of "Ohh, he's just had a temper tantrum".
Really?
You call smashing a house up, screaming incoherently, frothing at the mouth, wrapping a belt around your neck until you turn blue, climbing a tree and trying to hang yourself with said belt while making random paranoid claims a temper tantrum?
Then we got to Monash Medical Centre where the triage nurse - and, yes, she still works there, go figure - told me (and I quote verbatum)
"We have other children with more urgent needs who have to be seen ahead of your son, you have several hours to wait ahead of you, we can't even guarantee we can get anyone down here to look at him. Go wait in the waiting room."
The waiting room that was overflowing out into the car park.
Yeah, Monash Medical Centre sucks shit.
And, yes, I lodged a verbal complaint which was dealt with UBER pronto by the Director of Paediatric emergency medicine but, gee whiz, the same nurse crapped all over the admission of my Dad a few months later so obviously that "talk" you were going to have with her didn't make a dent on the thick matter between the stupid bint's ears.
Such was the crappy response it actually stopped me from trying to get help for months as I had been told by that useless ambo I HAD to attend Monash Medical Centre, that we DIDN'T get a say in where my child got treated.
We have called headspace, CAMHS, the cops, the ambos, the paediatrician, disability services and Uncle Tom Cobbley.
Some cops wanted to charge Aspie teen, others were more understanding, CAMHS intake worker didn't want to help telling me to get him charged by the police, disability services only got their act together after months of requests when the cops called them on our behalf, headspace felt he was too complex to attend there.
We have been to the Royal Children's Hosp - where the staff totally freakin' rock and run rings around those at Monash Medical Centre.
We have, as you know, recently attended the Royal Children's where they bent over backwards to get Aspie teen seen quicker at CAMHS for a medication review due to the fact he was trying to use knives on himself.
So, today we went to CAMHS stupidly hoping and thinking we were going to get some action, some medication review, something.
Nope.
They didn't even have his old history from his previous attendence there nor the paperwork the headspace psychistrist had copied to fax to them last week.
We got seen, asked a bunch of questions then told in another week or so they'd make a referral to yet another fucking public mental healthcare service "to get a really thorough assessment done".
Cos all the freaking specialists we've seen, the psychologist, the neurologist, the psychiatrists, the paediatrician, the speech therapists, the early intervention therapists and the umpteen counsellors haven't spent months doing 'really thorough assessments' already?
The bulging fucking file, full of reams and reams of documents of assessments, diagnosis', labels, names, treatments, interventions, behaviour management plans, and the eleventy hundred medications used doesn't mean diddly squat?
Because this new mob will do "a really thorough assessment" and rule out "labels no longer current like Aspie Teen's Tourette's"?
Because the freaking Tourette's was ONLY present just this week with his verbal tics in grunting during his anxiety attack at the Royal Children's Hosp, at home, prior to swimming, when shopping, when doing schoolwork?
But this is not current?!
What really pisses me off is the fact that, yes I am fully aware these people are over-worked and under-paid BUT they are in a position where they NEED TO LISTEN to what is being relayed to them.
They NEED to follow through on their DUTY OF CARE, they cannot just go through the motions, they HAVE to listen to the information being told to them.
BECAUSE THAT IS THEIR FUCKING JOB.
And after all this shit of almost 12 months where are we at?
Same old, same old - no medication review, no help, no assessment, nothing.
I have a 14 yr old who is unstable, who is on anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medications which are doing jack shit, he is flipping out and smashing the house up several times each week on average, hurting us as well as himself, attempting to injure himself more and more, has admitted to hearing voices and yet....
Victoria's Mental Health sucks hairy dogs' balls.
Nothing will get done until someone is badly hurt and then the depts will panic, going into overdrive, looking to place the blame with either the victim or the scapegoat who is the lowest rung in the organisation.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Swearing...and crap...and shitty stuff...see? Swearing. I told you so.
Here I am...again.
No, trying desperately for some jocularity but failing miserably.
So, I mightn't.
Try, that is.
It's worse prattling crap that is no where close to being funny.
So you just get the crap.
2 hospital visits, one on Sunday the other today.
Police were involved, too, with capsicum spray at the ready.
Again.
One thing different...knives were involved today.
Knives that have lived on a magnetic strip screwed to the kitchen wall for years HIGH up above our heads and the trusty Stanley knife in the shed.
Until Aspie teen had his growth spurt and is just taller than me.
Kitchen knives now locked in ugly orange toolbox, with an ugly padlock, tucked away out of sight under the kitchen bench.
No injuries, no skin broken, no blood happened...but only because his father scared him into dropping the first one and wrestled the second one off him.
Numb.
I feel numb...not so much as when someone dies but like everything is at a distance, like the old proverbial of looking at life through the bottom of a bottle.
Or...something.
Cos, apart from the knives, he's hearing voices.
Has been for ages.
But good old Denial is more than a river in Egypt and if you keep denying it those voices might disappear.
Yeah, when pigs fly backwards to the moon on Sundays for fresh fish from China.
Is he psychotic?
Probably, going by the behaviour and paranoid claims we've had thrown at us (along with the claw hammer, shoes, utensils, etc).
Is it schizophrenia?
Is it anxiety?
Is it the full moon turning blue in the 3rd house of Saturn when Taurus passes through the 2nd quarter?
Who freaking knows.
All I know is that those on the Autistic Spectrum do have the potential to start waltzing up close and personal with a mental illness, of any sort, variety and style.
Gotta love mental illness, it's an equal opportunity bullshit artist c**t.
No, trying desperately for some jocularity but failing miserably.
So, I mightn't.
Try, that is.
It's worse prattling crap that is no where close to being funny.
So you just get the crap.
2 hospital visits, one on Sunday the other today.
Police were involved, too, with capsicum spray at the ready.
Again.
One thing different...knives were involved today.
Knives that have lived on a magnetic strip screwed to the kitchen wall for years HIGH up above our heads and the trusty Stanley knife in the shed.
Until Aspie teen had his growth spurt and is just taller than me.
Kitchen knives now locked in ugly orange toolbox, with an ugly padlock, tucked away out of sight under the kitchen bench.
No injuries, no skin broken, no blood happened...but only because his father scared him into dropping the first one and wrestled the second one off him.
Numb.
I feel numb...not so much as when someone dies but like everything is at a distance, like the old proverbial of looking at life through the bottom of a bottle.
Or...something.
Cos, apart from the knives, he's hearing voices.
Has been for ages.
But good old Denial is more than a river in Egypt and if you keep denying it those voices might disappear.
Yeah, when pigs fly backwards to the moon on Sundays for fresh fish from China.
Is he psychotic?
Probably, going by the behaviour and paranoid claims we've had thrown at us (along with the claw hammer, shoes, utensils, etc).
Is it schizophrenia?
Is it anxiety?
Is it the full moon turning blue in the 3rd house of Saturn when Taurus passes through the 2nd quarter?
Who freaking knows.
All I know is that those on the Autistic Spectrum do have the potential to start waltzing up close and personal with a mental illness, of any sort, variety and style.
Gotta love mental illness, it's an equal opportunity bullshit artist c**t.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Read this and tell me the health system is healthy
My cousin just gave me a newspaper article to read, from last Sunday.
Even though my own son has recently been through/still going through similar experiences - both with his behaviours and with a lack of medical care being forthcoming (which resulted in an apology) - it is still gut-wrenching to read what our kids are put through.
Read the article HERE.
We already know that mental health services for adults is threadbare, with many falling through the gaping holes, but the fact that it's almost non-existent for our kids who could soon be the next generation of adults desperately seeking mental health care is disgusting in 2010.
It's beyond time for the politicians to shut up with empty promises and to put our money where it's needed most - prevention is easier, cheaper and more effective than any band-aid cure.
Early intervention across the board with Every.Single.Diagnosis.
Every.Single.Time.
Today.
Even though my own son has recently been through/still going through similar experiences - both with his behaviours and with a lack of medical care being forthcoming (which resulted in an apology) - it is still gut-wrenching to read what our kids are put through.
Read the article HERE.
We already know that mental health services for adults is threadbare, with many falling through the gaping holes, but the fact that it's almost non-existent for our kids who could soon be the next generation of adults desperately seeking mental health care is disgusting in 2010.
It's beyond time for the politicians to shut up with empty promises and to put our money where it's needed most - prevention is easier, cheaper and more effective than any band-aid cure.
Early intervention across the board with Every.Single.Diagnosis.
Every.Single.Time.
Today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)