am basing this on the personal experiences of mine in a intelectual disability hospital, otherwise known in the UK as greenways learning disability A&T acute hospital,but it can be applied to pyschiatric or forensic secure hospitals to.
had had major issues within the four months had spent at greenways locked up.
greenways and any very large environments like it are no place for autistic people.
they are noisy,echoey,extremely challenging so patients always have anxiety on the go from the fear of being attacked by other patients and in many cases we are not protected enough from the people who are predictibly unpredictible with extreme violent behavior.
and our sensory issues are not understood nor accomodated for- even the hospital catering company refused to cater for the severe food sensory issues of mine so woud go days without food but they catered for vegitarians,halal,soft diets etc.
oh and then theres the hearing sensory issues.
was shouted by some staff that am being selfish for asking if the main lounge tv coud be turned down-at least just a bit to make life a little more bearable because there was a patient with hearing difficulties,in their world; hearing difficulties trumps the extreme pain we feel from sound.
typicaly staff in hospital environments are being trained in hearing difficulties but not in the hearing impairments of those who hear to much such as with autism,hyperacusis and misophonia.
was told by staff,shoud never have been a patient there because am not sick like all the other patients, they basicaly said this to someone who was seeing,hearing and being instructed by a threatening halucinated bloke called james,theyre a fucking joke.
was shouted at very badly to stop any distressed behavior of mine-told 'OTHER PATIENTS ARE ACTUALY SICK HERE AND WE HAVE GOT TO ALL COME AND DEAL WITH YOU'.
they were always shouting about em being attention seeking and how pathetic it is; was desperately trying to strangle self with what ever bit of sheeting or clothing was wearing-not to die but to go unconcious as this temperarily stops blood going to the brain and for self anyway it makes the mind go blank for a while so woud forget the mental torture was feeling from some of the staff there and itd also temperarily stop the halucinations.
was on level three monitoring which meant having to have someone next to self at ALL times, even when on the toilet or in bed.
being a sectioned inpatient in hospital is fucking mind numbing,prisons have better services on offer than we do,they get to have their own tv and games console,they have a pool table,they get education/paid basic work, we dont get any of that,not in intelectual disability acute hospitals anyway.
these hospitals act like they have loads of shit to do but arts and crafts every day from morning till night with very limited materials and having extremely unpredictibly violent patients running in and out the craft room screaming and hitting out; causing anxiety for everyone isnt what woud call fun.
every day was pinned down on the floor in restraint with them on top and their knees forced into ribs with arm and hand twisted behind back for refusing to do staff demands or for behaviors that usualy werent harmful to anyone else and this is partly why am left with a spinal injury.
some staff are drunk on the authority they have and will restrain for any chance they can get.
so what needs to be done in the UKs intelectual [AKA learning disability] hospitals [apply this to other hospital where it applies]?
#better training on autistic sensory issues,and accomodating these where need be.
#making staff aware of the sound levels in these hospitals and to keep it to a acceptable level.
#better training on the entire intelectual [AKA learning] disability spectrum and how these present,not just focusing on the profound.
#better training on self injury of intelectualy disabled patients and why we do it;ie,stop thinking we all do it for attention.
#reduction in full restraining of patients,diverting behavior using other ways that dont involve threatening or being nasty or bribing to the individual.
#reduction in the use of benzodiazepines for severe anxiety/severe challenging behavior-looking at different medications-we will always have severe challenging behavior but benzos become physicaly addictive and do not last anywhere near half a year of every day use before losing all its effectiveness.
#better training in addiction/drug dependancy in people with autism and intelectual disability,it might stop cases like mine happening if doctors and nurses are able to understand why just because we cant explain our pain well it doesnt mean we dont have pain and are not doing it to feed addiction,thats NT think.
#picking up families of those sectioned in hospitals who live far away,this coud be part funded by the families themselves or a voluntary service of locals coud be set up,this woud help those of us stuck in hospital see our families when we live hours away and it woud be a big benefit to patient mental health,it took mum three hours to get to mine and she only managed to come once a week.
#training staff to stop verbaly announcing a burden on patients for showing behaviors;whether challenging or not, theyre in hospital to get better not to be treated like sht,they arent choosing to do their behaviors;very few people are purposely aware of such.
#if patient activities are broken-get them repaired ASAP,this is their life for however long they are sectioned or informal inpatient for,the sensory room and and computer were always broken at mine; must have only accessed the internet twice in a total of four months whilst sectioned there.
#allow the use of patient laptops when they want to use them if they dont sleep at night and no sleeping medications are offered,they put a ten am-to nine pm limit on mine which was very wrong as the only thing was able to do then was sit and think-going crazy causing more challenging behaviors and shitty attitudes from staff.
#dont allow those who are high risk for attempting violence towards others into the public areas,of course the individual needs a break from seeing the same four walls of their room but it is much more unfair on other patients to be attacked, many of us cannot show or communicate how we feel to others so we are just assumed to be hard and dont need protection from a beating.
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