Should a mental health hospital be providing emotional support when needed for GAD?

[JontyC]

Hi,

After 8 weeks struggling with anxiety and depression (tears/tremors/nausea), my 75 y.o mother entered a mental health hospital yesterday on the advice of her GP.

Although one day is too early to draw any conclusions, my mother has been finding there's no staff for emotional support she can call on when she's crying and shaking bad and just needs to be comforted, be told things will be ok etc.

At home she at least had emotional support from myself (came to stay with her over the last 6 weeks), and neighbours would constantly call in. She would do housework and potter in the garden distract herself - but all this is gone. With Covid, she's not allowed to leave the premises.

Talking to other inpatients, they unaminously tell her about the lack of emotional support there compared to other places they have been. She's now very concerned.

So I find myself in the position of not knowing if this is an intentional, cold-turkey, break dependence on others part of the therapy, or it's just not a good hospital for her.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi JontyC,

Welcome to the forums and thank you for your question. I'm sorry to hear how much your mother is struggling and her perspectives on the mental health hospital.

From my understanding, this is pretty normal, although it depends on the hospital as everyone has different approaches. A lot of the time the hospitals priority is to have people eating regularly/normal sleeping pattern and stable (i.e. suicidal ideation). I'm not sure what state your mother is in, but the goals for the hospital might be very 'basic'.

I don't believe that any hospital would intentionally have a cold-turkey method; I think it's more so that either they don't have the staffing for emotional support or the staff don't see it as their responsibility.

If you're open to it, you could have a chat to the staff to find out more and share your concerns- even though it's only day one it's completely valid to ask about the type of support they offer day to day and what is to be expected.

rt

[JontyC]

Thanks for the welcome and response. She's finished day 4 now.

As you say, the nurses likely don't see it as their responsibility and understandably so. They are very nice, have their jobs to do and are not qualified psychologists.

It's costing the health fund $20k for 3 weeks - I would have expected regular 1:1 sessions with a psychologist or counsellor to help learn to how to deal with the anxiety rather than what seems to be just group programs with the only individual attention being a twice weekly review on medication.

However I sat in on mum's session with the psychiatrist today, asked lots of questions and both of us feel a lot happier. This is what was missing - an introduction to the program or even and indication it was a program. We only learnt it was 3 weeks long from the health fund receipt. She was just dumped in a room to cry in the morning until the drug counter opened and the drugs kicked in. Didn't qualify yet due to length of stay to go to the gym or on walks, can't go outside. Only reading material given was printouts from other organisations' websites like getselfhelp.co.uk, group classes colouring in and singing songs like at the nursing home when she visited her father with dementia. The group classes are at times of the day when she's fine and totally cluey, so it's hard to draw happy pictures with the group. They'd be better when she's anxious to help calm her but the timing is out.

Upon request, she is now on the waiting list to have a single 1:1 session with a psychologist. I just have no idea why's there's a waiting list when the facility charges $1k/day. Plus she's been told by others they're very junior psychologists.

Upon request, she was given something more substantial manual to read than the printouts, giving her the knowledge she seeks to learn about her condition.

So it definitely feels like a lack of organisation and a cash cow at $1k/day, but the psychiatrist was excellent and explained a lot about the process to at least have her not wanting to come home straight away.