Changes to the Mental Health System

In the past ten or fifteen years, the mental health system has improved. I'm glad that the old asylums, out in the middle of nowhere, were closed down, and replaced with modern mental health units in more or less every local area.

Now every psychiatric patient has their own room, and doesn't have to sleep in a shared dormitory. This change was very much needed. Also, t is good now that we have hearing voices groups, and that there has been a shift of change in the mental health system how voices are interpreted and understood. I still feel that more psychiatrists could learn from different approaches to hearing voices, and that a hearing voices group should exist in every local area. The nearest hearing voices group to me is eight miles away, but I don't have any transport and it's difficult for me to get there and back.

The mental health system needs to change more for the better. For one thing, we need trained counsellors in psychiatric hospitals, because often the psychiatric patients need to talk to somebody whilst in psychiatric hospital, but the psychiatric nurses are not talkative or communicative. Maybe counselling and listening and communication skills could be part of their training.

When I was a psychiatric patient in an old asylum in 92, I was in pain, suffering, and in distress, and very much needed to talk to somebody for understanding and reassurance, and just to make contact with another human being, to bring me out of my self and keep my mind and emotions in action. I asked to speak to the psychiatric nurses, but they said 'Go away and we'll talk later', then I went away and came back in ten minutes and they'd say the same thing again. When a psychiatric nurse did finally agree with me she was very defensive and just sat in silence, saying yes or no.

I got so desperate that I actually phoned the Samaritans from the phone booth in the corridor and spoke to them, and they helped me tremendously. What I needed was someone to talk to in psychiatric hospital, and who was a trained therapist and listener. We now have CPN's and Occupational Therapists in psychiatric units, but it's high time we had trained counsellors too. This very much needs to change within the mental health system.

There should also be a day centre in every local area, and every patient should have a social worker or a CPN. My GP promised to get me a CPN, but he did not keep his promise. There is a day centre in town, but there should also be one in my local area. The day centre in town is very badly run, and when I went there a few years ago, none of the activities that were supposed to be running were actually running. People were just sitting round drinking tea or coffee, or watching television. Annother day centre thirty miles away is a much better day centre, as they have art, reflexology, and counselling there. Every day centre should have free counselling available too.

These are the changes that are needed to make the mental health system better and more conducive to recovery.