A patient recalls her “nightmare” time at Whitchurch Hospital

Mar 3 2008 Western Mail

Whitchurch Hospital celebrates its 100th anniversary next month, but the outdated unit will be closed in the next few years. As patients and staff are encouraged to write about their memories of the old hospital, Gillian Brightmore recalls her ‘nightmare’ as a patient at Whitchurch

WHITCHURCH Hospital in 2006 was a place where the staff receive therapy and the patients do not.

The word psychotherapy is never mentioned to patients there, let alone cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). There is a strict drug programme relentlessly controlled and monitored by staff, who are more like jailers than carers. Patients suspected of not taking their medication are searched.

The wards, even unsecured ones, are locked. Patients have to ask permission to go outside and then have to wait for long periods before being allowed to leave.

I saw patients being physically restrained, brought to the ground and forcibly injected. This was not an unusual occurrence.

The high point of the patient’s week was the ward round. Then the consultant psychiatrist entered the ward with an entourage of accompanying staff to be entertained like royalty by a subservient nursing staff providing them with copious tea and biscuits.

The patients, after a considerable wait, would then be summoned into a very small room to be seated in a corner and then scrutinised by at least six of these professionals.

I believe these meetings were designed to intimidate the patient and to demonstrate the complete power that the consultant has over another human being.

It was devastating – I was personally insulted, told that I did not want to get well and that I was a burden to my son and was upsetting him.

It was then suggested that I sell my house and go into residential accommodation immediately.

I was also asked questions such as who is the Prime Minister of the UK? What date was it and asked to draw the face of a clock with the numerals and write in a time.

These professionals have the power to detain you for long periods of time or to send you to yet another ward for more treatment.

A patient could be moved at a moment’s notice from their ward to another – often late at night if a bed was said to be needed – without any sort of explanation and often to dormitory wards where the only privacy was a curtain around a bed and where women had to walk through a men’s dormitory to their space.

The toilets and showers were dirty, smelling of urine, and the floors of showers and toilets were littered with cigarette ends. The bathroom itself was kept locked.

Patients smoked openly at night in their beds. There was no attempt to stop this happening.

Time dragged on these wards. There was nothing to do there except watch television or to take part in ward activities, such as listening to CDs or playing bingo.

Walks in the grounds usually had to be accompanied and often staff were too busy to take patients out at all. There was little fresh air as many of the windows did not open and the doors were always kept locked.

The extent to which staff controlled patients was evident in that the TV remote control was kept in the office and patients were not allowed to use it.

Fire alarms periodically electrified the wards with penetrating noise that went on for several minutes at a time, often several times a day.

The food was conveyed from a faraway kitchen by electric trolleys and was congealed and inedible on arrival.

Often the staff did not know what they were serving and laughingly told us so.

There were perhaps two or three bananas or apples sent up to a ward for 15 people – fresh vegetables or salad were rarely seen.

This was not One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but was in Cardiff in 2006. I am extremely angry that myself, and other people, were treated in this dehumanising and degrading fashion.

I was patronised particularly because I was an older woman and not heterosexual. I felt emasculated and wanted to scream. But for the visits of my son, I would have lost all sense of myself.

This is still going on in the 21st century.

There are now plans to close the hospital over the next three years, but a new building will not alter the inbred culture that exists in these mental hospitals.

Staff there refer to the revolving door syndrome – that is patients come in, stay a while, leave and then come back again because they have not received the treatment they need. I myself know of a least two subsequent suicides after I left of young men from that ward.

It is a tragedy that adequate care is not given to those seeking help.

Mental illness is an affliction not a punishment. It is a psychological problem that can afflict anyone whoever they are.

Staff need to be re-educated and trained in therapies such as CBT – one nurse I met was an ex-miner with only a few days training before coming onto a ward dealing with seriously ill people.

Staff should be vetted and rigorously scrutinised before being allowed to work on such wards.

Whitchurch Hospital is a place of endless corridors punctuated by locked wards like the Gates of Hell. I was there for four months. One lasting image I have is of a face pressed up against a window pane of one of those locked doors and the smell of stale food, cigarette smoke and urine with the jangle of keys.

This is in Cardiff in the 21st century. Somehow I survived. Others did not.

Gillian Brightmore, a former teacher who lives in Cardiff, was admitted to Whitchurch Hospital after suffering from depression. She is also a member of the reference panel of the Mental Health Commission

NHS trust’s response

Gary Rix is the general manager of mental health services at Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, which runs Whitchurch Hospital.

He said, “Mrs Brightmore’s observations of the care environment at Whitchurch Hospital are acknowledged and her apparent frustration is shared by the care team at Whitchurch when attempting to deliver modern health care within the constraints of Edwardian buildings.

“This frustration is intensified in line with an increased awareness and understanding of the complexity of problems encountered by people who suffer with mental health problems and we feel we could provide better help if alternatives to hospital care were available and hospital care in itself was better supported.

“A marked improvement resulted from the introduction of community care teams in the early 1990s, but did not go far enough.

“More recently, services have developed in and around hospital care which have enabled us to provide alternatives to admission, and a more beneficial hospital stay when required.

“Due to the intervention of the recently commissioned 24-hour Crisis and Home Support Care teams we are extremely proud of the service’s ability to keep many people who may be in crisis out of hospital care.

“In addition we provide access to crisis beds outside the hospital setting when 24- hour respite support is needed.

“Alternatively, crisis day support is available when access to a caring day environment would help in the short term.

“Whitchurch Hospital has and continues to achieve recognition for a number of care innovations. These include the presence of nurses on all wards who work specifically to improve the quality of the patient’s day.

“The number of wards at Whitchurch obtaining accreditation against national standards has increased and praise has been forthcoming from external mental health inspectors for the standard of professional care provided and clinical leadership.

“Initiatives, such as dementia care mapping, has brought health gains to our older people’s services and further efforts are being made to support user and carer participation in running and monitoring important parts of the hospital service.

“We are particularly excited about plans to replace Whitchurch Hospital with new purpose-built environments at the Whitchurch and Llandough Hospital sites, fit for the type of care we strive to provide.

“It has been a remarkable achievement for the trust and the mental health service, that the design process has been led by its clinical staff with carers and users fully involved.

“In April this year, Whitchurch Hospital will be 100 years old. We believe that it is no longer acceptable to deliver modern mental health care in such a building and that it hinders us in delivering care that is truly person centred.

“We are committed to continue to change what we do jointly with staff and patients and look forward to the future benefits of a more modern service based on partnership and recovery.

“We hope Mrs Brightmore and our wonderfully supportive local community at Whitchurch, joins us in this effort.”