"Inpatient on Rose Ward"

I was admitted to Rose Ward in Queen Marys Hospital during the night where I was seen by a nice duty doctor and friendly nurses.

This gave me hope that this ward would have a compassionate, friendly consultant but I was left disappointed.

In the morning I was seen by the consultant who I felt was intimidating. I felt they forced a diagnosis on me that my team in the community had expressed doubts about, and we were looking into a different diagnosis. I tried to explain but they seemed harsh and replied bluntly to each thing I said with a reason for why I was wrong. This left me confused and upset.

Even when I was crying the consultant had no empathy. I felt like I wasn't being treated as a human being but a text-book case study. The worst thing is that they told me they had gone through my records and it saddens me that after all the things I have been through in life they were talking down to me like that. I don't know what human being can have a crying and unwell person in front of them, who has been through trauma, and behave like they are a naughty child in denial.

I walked out of the meeting distressed, and so I discharged myself. The nurses tried to help. They were kind. They sat with me and told me to stay for a few days - they said to give the ward a chance to assess me and the nurses could advocate for me. But I left because I didn't feel safe being looked after by a doctor who had just said all of those things. Additionally, I was given none of my morning or mid-day medication on that day. I felt this ward was not going to do anything to help.

That day when I got home as I had already missed two doses I decided to stop all of my medication for good because of comments the consultant made about my medication in that same meeting. I went into another crisis the following day and I had to be persuaded by professionals to go back on the meds.

I am disappointed that wards employ unkind doctors to look after unwell and very distressed patients. I see the words 'compassion' and 'caring' on the NHS Lanyards that staff wear but those qualities weren't apparent in this case apart from the nice nurses and duty doctor that I met.

Please look into this and ask other patients about their experience. I don't think I'm the only one after having spoken to other people on the ward.