"Coity Clinic Mental Health Crisis Team Bridgend"

My Mother has suffered from two brain injuries. 

This has led to her having multiple mental health issues including paranoia, OCD, depression and anxiety. All of which she has suffered from for 8 years and is well known to doctors and nurses. 

She has always felt that the mental health nurses in Bridgend lack empathy, compassion and concern towards how she is feeling. I have now seen this first hand. 

After my Mother told her senior support worker where she is living that she has plans to take her own life, her support worker was so worried she decided to ring the ambulance.

After the paramedics assessed my Mother's mental health they decided it her current mental state was so bad it was appropriate for her to be taken to the Bridgend Mental Health Crisis Team by ambulance for an assessment on her mental health at this time. 

We were met with hostility from both nurses in the clinic where the first thing the leading nurse said to my Mother in a public corridor was telling her not shout like last time. Already my mentally ill Mother was met with prejudgement despite the fact she hadn't seen the Crisis Team in over a year. 

During the assessment my Mother explained how she had tried to kill herself in a distressing way 3 days prior to the assessment and how she had made plans to commit suicide that day if her support worker hadn't of intervened. 

Both nurses quizzed my Mother on the details of her suicide plans in what seemed an attempt to force my Mother to contradict herself, both seemingly more concerned with trying to  my discredit my Mother's story rather than accept the underlying issue that she is suicidal. 

The leading nurse in the room described the assessment as a joke and when my Mother pleaded and said she will make plans to take her own life again the nurse said my mother has the capacity to make her own decisions. 

During the time of the assessment I was making notes of what was being said, something my family and I are having to do to document what I feel is mistreatment of my Mother. 

At one point in the assessment I briefly checked my phone, this led to the second nurse aggressively accusing me of "voice recording" the assessment and asking me to "turn my phone off" to make the nurses feel more comfortable. Again my Mother and I were treated with absolute hostility and this accusation is something that deeply upset my Mother and I. 

Throughout the beginning of the assessment the leading nurse would not let me speak about how my Mother was feeling, constantly interrupting me at the  beginning of any sentence and undermining my voice in the room by saying -let your Mum speak-when my Mother was happy with me giving my opinion into how she was feeling. My Mother and I felt like we were not listened to the entire assessment. 

When the leading nurse then began to ask my Mother seemingly irrelevant questions which my Mother didn't know how to answer due to being in such distress, the nurse turned to me and began to ask me the same questions. 

This led to confusion as the leading nurse hadn't allowed me to speak about my Mother before (as mentioned above).  My Mother and I felt that both nurses were manipulating us both throughout the whole assessment in an attempt to get us out the door. 

The leading nurse felt the assessment wasn't going anywhere and said the assessment was a waste of time so decided to abruptly get up and leave the room, the second nurse followed straight after. 

My Mother and I were left in the assessment room speechless, in absolute shock how two mental health nurses could actually just get up and leave someone so clearly crying out for help. 

The whole assessment is the most unprofessional and disgusting series of events I have ever witnessed. I was appalled at how both nurses acted during this assessment. It felt like the leading nurse was smirking at being able to quiz and intimidate a vulnerable adult when asking about her suicide plans. 

After seeing news paper articles and stories I am starting an action group on Facebook regarding mistreatment people may have faced from Coity Clinic or the Crisis Team in Bridgend. I hope we can get enough support for an investigation to happen. 

I would like to  add that neither nurses bothered to look at the sheet the paramedics gave them which had very important information from tests the paramedics carried out. These tests had information regarding my Mother’s seriously high blood pressure.

Thank you for reading.