"Patient confidentially for mental health"

Was took by Ambulance to Altnagelvin A&E due to poor mental health.

Was sitting in the admission corridor from 2 am until 12 midnight the following night (22hrs). I was in a queue for bed to go to Grangewood Hospital. 

The daytime staff nurses in A&E, the section I was in, were brilliant and pleasant, helpful and reassuring.

However it was when the night time staff nurses came on things changed. Where is patient confidentially in this hospital for Mental Health? A nurse told the whole hospital exactly why I was in hospital by asking me if I still had suicidal thoughts etc. Plus the doctor interviewed in front of 3 people in the chairs where they were all listening and in earshot of the interview with the doctor.

I left hospital after 22hours because in my view this hospital treats mental health patients like chewing gum on the floor. I was left sitting on an uncomfortable chair for 22hrs. This makes your mental health worse. I was told if I left understandably police would be contacted. I left anyway.

I think there should be a separate section in this hospital for Mental Health patients awaiting admission to Grangewood and they should be treated the same as other patients and offered a bed until they can be transferred down to Grangewood or another Mental Health inpatient hospital.

 

Sitting in a corridor and soft chair for 22 hours is uncomfortable, makes your mental health worse and is frankly degrading, in my view. Then having the whole corridor of other patients know exactly why you're there and stigma around mental health is still bad within this city.

It makes you feel that if I take unwell again this is the last place I want to be with certain. I think this needs to be urgently fixed and something put in place for Mental Health patients, like a separate area and nurses who aren't shouting why you're in there for, for other patients to then hear and judge you.

Awful, awful experience.