If I was to write this as fiction, it would be unbelievable. Sometimes I think the insane are medicating the mad!
I was asked by John Hunt’s nervous mother Marion to go to an appointment she had with John’s psychiatrist in Carraig Mór Hospital last week. Again she did not get to see her son.
Carraig Mór is being exposed as a prison, emerging out of the dark pretence of being a hospital, into reality’s light as a place where the living are buried out of the public view. Carraig Mór is a grim place.
When we arrived at Carraig Mór last week, instead of the usual security staff opening the door, a male nurse met us at the outside set of the double doors and informed us I was not allowed in. Just Marion Hunt!
This masquerades as a public hospital. I asked why? He said: “Doctor’s orders.” My wheelchair was in the first set of doors at this stage so it made it a little awkward for him to shut the door. I said: “I am cold.”
Marian Hunt had been told, for legal reasons she had to attend alone. She rang me and asked me to be her advocate again. I agreed. We both knew I was not going to be allowed to be present when John’s case was discussed.
But Marion requested I be with her to put a point of view. We had talked and we agreed that rather than take an adversarial stance, that she offered to co-operate with John being transferred to the Central Mental Hospital in Dublin. All agree he has no hope in Carraig Mór.
But back to the pantomime in the hall. The nurse now explained: “I am only doing what I am told to do.”
“Is the psychiatrist in the hospital?” I ask. ”Yes.“ “Can you request he personally explain why he won’t meet us?” The nurse: “He won’t.”
The head nurse arrived. “The doctor will only see Marion alone.” We ask again that the doctor talk to Marian and I for a few minutes. The response is no. Reinforcements arrive. One concerned she might get her name in the papers, but insisting on protecting the psychiatrist.
Why are nurses and civil servants passing on information from the doctor who is sitting upstairs like God? Two of the nurses nudged each other, embarrassed and left.
All this is going on at the entrance stacked with furniture, people visiting, guys cleaning. There are empty rooms all along the corridor.
Anyway, it was agreed Marion would go alone to see the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist would see me afterwards. My son David and I sit in the hall. I am not sure if any laws were broken that morning but I do believe morality was dented.
I asked to see John. I was then informed that I would no longer to allowed to visit John Hunt unless I wrote in a request, and received written permission from the psychiatrist. Maureen O’Sullivan TD has agreed to write to the Health and Justice departments to enquire as to the legality of this.
I rang the complaints officer of the HSE. After the meeting, the whole morning fell completely into the role of farce. The psychiatrist walked down the hall with, it appeared to me, an embarrassed nurse, and David and I were finally asked into a room out of the hall.
The psychiatrist then said what he had said to me at meetings before. “I am meeting with you to tell you I will not talk to you.” I told him again I thought that was childish and we really wanted to help. “I won’t talk to you,” he said and left.
So while the psychiatrist asks David and I into a room to vacate the hall, Marion Hunt is ushered down the hall by other staff and out the door! Alice in Wonderland shite!
Fair questions regarding law/rights and treatment/outcomes, in my experience, are not welcome in the world of forensic/forced psychiatry. Other advocates were mentioned, Marion Hunt did not choose them; she chose Mad Pride. Due to the fact they will not talk to us, the staff have no idea what we might say.
Marion Hunt had no real clarity as to what she was told that morning. She knew that her son; a creative, emotional, now toothless 29 year old, incontinent and very ill son is being taken to court as some sort of legal requirement to get him out of Carraig Mór. John Hunt’s chosen solicitor has yet to receive any notice. I wonder will the Gardaí now investigate?
Shipped off, they hoped, quietly, to where those charged under the Criminal Law (Insanity Act) are detained. John Hunt got pissed in Bantry and had a row six years ago! Does this move necessitate he have a criminal record? Marion said, they said something regarding kidney stones but was not sure. Her GP is not allowed to see her son.
Could such a scene take place in the cancer suite in the Cork University Hospital? Staff, in public areas ordering a polite, supportive friend out of the hospital and banning them. Only in forced psychiatry. John Hunt, I have been told, is so drugged now it is pitiful to see him. What do we do?
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