‘The facility felt like a jail’: How my daughter was devastated by a medical system meant to assist her
The awareness came to me with sharp clarity that the mental health facility housing my teenager resembled a locked ward.
She had trusted unquestioningly in the professionals. We had mirrored that trust. Everything altered drastically when she was transferred from our area facility to the secured unit at Huntercombe hospital.
As we got ready to depart, she walked calmly toward the patient transport alongside me and her support worker, who embraced her firmly before watching us leave.
When the van door opened at the new location, the stark building towered above us. We were received and guided up a set of steps and through the secured entryways, one slamming closed behind us, the staff member waiting for the initial lock to engage before unlocking the subsequent door.
This was a closed environment, without sunlight, my eyes hurting immediately from the artificial illumination overhead. We were led to an central area, lined with windows. The monitoring zone, they called it.
The Heartbreaking Separation
Her delicate fingers held my fingers as they stated that I must go. When I protested that I hadn’t helped her settle, they responded that “parents are not permitted on the unit.”
After asking again, they granted me a quick viewing to her room, but demanded I leave right away afterward, citing hospital regulations.
Even now, I wake up in the early hours with my heart beating rapidly as I revisit walking through the shared space to Ruth’s assigned room. The minimal furniture included a solitary bed and basic furniture, with windows that were sealed.
Their voices faded as they detailed how a different attendants would watch Ruth around the clock. I set down her luggage on the ground. Ruth remained sitting on the bed, visibly frightened, before I was led away.
Suddenly, I found myself locked on the other side those locked portals, grasping a piece of paper that told me I could see Ruth for sixty minutes, on two occasions each week.
What have I let them do?
A Devastating Outcome
{Our daughter, our girl, passed away on Valentine’s Day 2022 at evening on the children’s ICU at John Radcliffe hospital in the city. She was taken immediately from the mental health facility, an publicly funded but commercially operated youth psychiatric facility, where she had been allowed to harm herself lethally two days earlier.|Our beloved daughter died on the 14th of February, 2022 at evening in the {pediatric intensive care unit|
