Persecution: The SUI Cide Apparatus

December, 1, 2014 | 9 Comments

Comments

  1. As I have mentioned before, I’m not academic…. but wow a lightbulb has gone on and I see clearly now.

    I don’t know what else to say apart from Thank you Dr Healy.

    Thank you for caring.

    Thank you for being brave enough to stand up for people who cannot do it for themselves.

    Thank you for telling the world the truth.

  2. Re “Risk management is close to the quintessence of Pharmageddon” – some 6 years ago (as a midwife who liked improving our maternity department in Bronglais Hospital, Aberystwyth and had finally after years of effort been allowed to update all the (totally out of date and unsupported) protocols set up or just left for decades by consultants who seemed to know nothing and care even less) – and having seen how the so called ‘examination’ of the hospital went (where managers just stayed up the night before retyping or creating protocols that had never existed and would never be used (and dating them back for supposed years ago – ie lying repatedly), and making sure that the only people working that day would be ones who had no negative opinions about the management or organisation of the department … and would say what they were told to – I decided to do a course on Risk Management at Bangor University, hoping to be able to improve things further … It was a shock to discover that of the 2 people teaching the course one was a very psychologically upset (cos his wife had divorced him) who made quite a few unacceptable female comments and had absolutely NO experience of working for the NHS at all, and whose idea of risk management was manager types drinking coffee and chatting at meetings … and the other was the very guy who had always come to (pretendedly) examine Bronglais Hospital, and who really, really did not want to hear what I said to him in front of the other ‘students’ – many of which, though now high up professionals or managers had worked as midwives and nurses etc previously and were aware of the reality of it …I left the course after 6 months, discovering that far from what I had hoped and expected, Risk Management was just Tick Boxing, nothing else, and totally to support the managers, not at all the NHS workers or patients at all …

  3. Reading your weekly instalment of your trials and tribulations is increasingly making my blood boil.Here I am , on the coastal belt of North Wales, without an inkling of these horrifying goings on.I trust that when we read the final part of this sordid affair you will involve the press in all that’s gone on? The part that pains me is the way that you have been treated for many years – just because you speak out on behalf of those who do not have the knowledge to speak for themselves.I have firsthand experience of some of those,in this area, who feel that they daren’t speak their minds – thank goodness that you are still prepared to make a stand without counting the cost. I strongly feel that it is our duty – if we believe in your findings – to encourage those that we care for who have suffered (or are still suffering) as a result of being prescribed these drugs to question their present medications and their effect on their health at present.To this end, our son has decided that he wishes to slowly decrease and remove his medications to see how he copes without them.The psychiatrist that he saw recently agreed with him wholeheartedly(a rare find!).This week we have a meeting with his usual psychiatrist – it will be interesting to see if there is complete agreement there also. Thanks for all you are doing – hope the ending to this particular story is not too horrific.I shall be out protesting if it is!

  4. I wish every health care worker on both sides of the Atlantic could read this column! It explains so much of the mess we’re in. I hope at least some UK nurses in the RCN will read it. They just put out a report called “Are we turning back the clock on mental health?” which seemed to be groping towards some of the same conclusions:

    [Reporting on 3,300 MH nursing posts cut in recent years] “Community psychiatric nurses have seen their caseloads spiral to unsustainable levels, while nurses working in mental health hospitals are dangerously overstretched. But this is not just an issue of inadequate staff numbers … Senior mental health nurses … have been disproportionately affected by cuts. Too often, they are being replaced with cheaper, less skilled nurses or care assistants.

    “As a result, our nursing workforce is increasingly ill-equipped to give people with mental illness the specialist, recovery-driven care they need. Nurses are being forced to take a risk-averse approach to care which prioritises keeping people safe, over helping them get better.”

    First time I’ve heard it put so plainly: Cutting back staff encourages rigid “quality control” rules … so the over-worked and under-trained staff can fulfil all their target goals without thinking or feeling.

    Rigid “quality control” rules lead to lousy care … and more work, caring for patients who don’t get better, in an environment where they can’t possibly. Which means staff are still more overstretched. Repeat until the system collapses. (It also seems like mental-health and developmental-disability services are the #1 targets for private contractors, who specialize in cookie-cutter care and cheap, disposable staff. So maybe the collapse of public care is exactly what they and their friends are hoping for.)

    Full report here: http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/600628/004772.pdf

  5. Re: “very few readers are likely to be still with me at this point, and I will probably lose more with what is to come.” I’m sure many are still “with you” David, and eagerly waiting on forthcoming posts. The issues you raise, as covered in Pharmageddon and RCT blog posts are critical to our field, to society. All of us especially doctors need to pay them close attention. Thanks for your efforts!

  6. Johanna– your thinking here validates what I have only whispered to my small circle of trustworthy nursing consorts:

    >>Rigid “quality control” rules lead to lousy care … and more work, caring for patients who don’t get better, in an environment where they can’t possibly. Which means staff are still more overstretched. Repeat until the system collapses. (It also seems like mental-health and developmental-disability services are the #1 targets for private contractors, who specialize in cookie-cutter care and cheap, disposable staff. So maybe the collapse of public care is exactly what they and their friends are hoping for.) – <<

    Any wonder that anyone working in this system with a modicum of professionalism and an ounce of compassion for patients, feels like a whipping post for *management*??

    Correlating time lines with significant changes within *the system* , I find myself viewing the advent of the electronic medical record(EMR) pivotal to understanding how we arrived at a point where mental health nurses,as professionals, are becoming obsolete.

    In 2006, converting to the EMR was billed as everything from a major time saver to the most convenient means for sharing vital patient data amongst multiple disciplines and medical specialties throughout the institution where the patient was receiving treatment. BUT, the EMR was something else on an inpatient psychiatric unit. It was a programmed means for directing the activities of the nursing staff by automating their focus of attention to ticking off boxes. Narrative notes written to describe a nurse's assessments of individual patient's needs and patient responses to interventions— GONE. Replaced by screens with multiple choice selections and little blank boxes for "comments".

    EMR admission forms are to be completed during the interview of a new patient. The admission process is now a programmed format. Conversations with patients that supply all pertinent info were discouraged. This was /is a very backwards approach to developing rapport with patients, as well as being an insult to any professional nurse who understood the value of unique aspects of a patient's presentation– NONE,of which can be captured filling in the blanks on the computer screen.

    Suicide risk assessments on the EMR yield numbers that dictate the level of *risk* from low to severe, but offer no insight into the patient's mind set. There is no provision on this risk assessment for taking into consideration the context of a patient's thoughts of harming himself. No room for anything that addresses the patient as an individual, or the nurse as competent in conducting a "suicide risk" interview.

    Nurse's have traditionally been big complainers about documentation/paper work, as it a time consuming task done away from the bedside and usually at the end of a long, tiring shift. The EMR did not save time, or elevate documentation to a status above where it has always been- *the bane of a nurse's existence*. What it did accomplish is no less brain disabling than the psych drugs nurses are still needed for –administering to patients on locked wards. Ironic.

    Ah! I still remember how writing on paper, carefully avoiding errors and processing observations thru an ever expanding data bank of knowledge, produced new information,insights and plans for improving the care of psychiatric patients. It was an activity that broadened the learning curve to encompass the vital bits of data that are unique to every patient as an individual. I can also imagine using a laptop to write my nurse's notes, smiling at the ease of having spell check and not needing to ink through and initial every error– I am no longer so attached to exquisite pens and the feel of writing on paper that I cannot appreciate computer technology as a means for making even a nurse's job easier…

    BUT– I can tell you that the EMR has made it possible for just about anyone to provide the data that insurance companies and probably Pharma, too, are seeking. I can say that the EMR and it's streamlined data collection format is a template for dehumanizing patients and getting rid of nurses who aspire to be something more than over paid drug pushers.

    I have always believed this axiom "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail"

    Is it possible that there could be a PLAN to FAIL ?? Who would benefit from it?

  7. Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    “Far from generating knowledge, every trial generates ignorance.”

    I believe: the above sentence is only true as long as you lack of knowledge.
    But you cannot achieve knowledge only with the help of trials. You always need a basic understanding of a process.
    When you already possess that basic knowledge, than a trial can be a very good proof and might even lead you to more detailed and unexpected conclusions.

    “Another problem is that some within Cochrane agree with what is being said here about trials, but figure that ideas like this cannot be aired if we are to keep homeopaths and others out of the medical temple.”

    If someone REALLY believes that he possesses a reliable basic knowledge of a process, he should not fear to include also other opinions into his trials! If e.g. they are so sure that some “alternative therapy” doesn’t work, so why don’t they include in their trials, proving like this its worthlessness?

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