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Reality of life on ward
• I WOULD like to take the opportunity of the appointment of Richard Arthur as chairman of Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust for mental health to draw attention to the disastrous policy whereby mental patients over 65 are placed in a geriatric ward, regardless of their condition or illness (Mental health boss appointed, December 5).
I was a patient (aged 68) in the famous Cedar ward of St Pancras Hospital in July 2006. Despite wonderful nursing and administration, both stretched to the limit by the pitiful state of many patients suffering from dementia, the ward was often reduced to a state of simple damage limitation. There was often urine on the floor. The toilets were often blocked with rubber gloves and new toilet rolls. The shower units had no fittings, so you were in effect sluicing yourself down with a rubber hose.
The experienced and supportive staff, mainly from Caribbean backgrounds, were subject to occasional racial abuse, but you could tell they regarded this as the least of their problems, which was no less than the impossible task of running a mixed (male and female) ward of psychiatric cases of differing kinds and dementia cases.
This policy of collecting all mental patients together in a geriatric ward is cruel and counterproductive. It undoes the work of the mental health crisis response team, which in my case was caring, labour-intensive and as supportive as it possibly could be. Over two years have passed since my experience. I hope things have changed for the better, although it seems to have taken me more than two years to get over it.
NICHOLAS JACOBS
NW5
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