MEMORIES OF ST. JAMES'S HOSPITAL (ANONYMOUS)

Some of the Changes in Adult Mental Health Services in the past 35 years have been noted by an anonymous person :-
 
"Most of the many changes are for the better, e.g.

• The closure of the large hospitals and long stay wards mean you are no longer herded like cattle with thirty other people with little or no privacy
• People still today complain about the food. In the 70s and 80s and early 90s it was really appalling with no menu choice.
• You never had a regular ward round or saw a doctor weekly on the long stay wards. You were not seen unless really necessary. Why bother? - you weren`t going anywhere. On the acute wards you were only seen when the doctor had a particular thing to say.
• There was no follow up into the community. I personally lived in a garden shed for a while, although I was a day patient at the time. They knew the address - that was all. You never had a social worker let alone a care co-ordinator. They, along with the community psychiatric nurse, had yet to be thought of until the 1990s.
• There were no care plans or Care Plan Approach meetings - you had no voice at all in your treatment.
• There are not enough therapist to go around at this present time and waiting lists are appalling, but in the 70s and 80s you were not likely to be referred in the first place.
• Service User Involvement didn`t exist until the early 1990s and carers were first carers without any peer support or voice.

The only thing I miss about the past is the social and work activities. I could choose to work in the I.T. factory, printing, on the farm or O/T. I chose the farm. Also, we had weekly discos, large Christmas parties in the main hall and the annual pantomime put on by staff. But all in all I am glad conditions"

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