"Not impressed."

My father was recently discharged from this hospital and I have got to say that the whole experience has been awful. The communication between staff members is shocking and also the treatment of patients is shocking. On numerous occasions visiting my father I witnessed staff members talk to patients like there were animals. The funny thing is, they wouldn't notice I was there or paying attention to them and would shout and be unpleasant to patients and then when they did notice me they changed their tone straight away and acted nice towards them. Its not a caring environment whatsoever. This is further reinforced by my father's personal accounts of being in there. I remember during a CPA my father was told by the doctor he was able to have leave for the weekend. There were two doctors present and also what I believed to be a nurse. We were all so excited and for the first time in months I saw my dad smile. Then within 5 minutes another nurse came in who claimed to be the manager informed us that were not happy for him to leave and that he wouldn't be allowed to do so. Now, this may seem small but to someone in such a vulnerable position it is huge and it shouldn't of happened. People who are qualified in the mental health field should know that promising something to someone as big as that to a vulnerable person and then telling them no is going to further diminish the patients trust and also the families trust in the hospital. All because of a lack of communication between staff. My father also developed an eating disorder as a result of his condition and found it very difficult to eat anything. He informed me that he was pestered more than 3 times by different staff members, each meal time whether he would eat or not. This made him feel worse and almost like he was being bullied into eating. I'm not by any means a mental health expert but I know by experience and common sense that pestering someone to eat is not going to make them eat. Its not like he spoke to anyone about it either, or received any form of counselling for it. And when he finally felt comfortable enough to eat soup, he himself had to pester the staff to get it for him and we had to ring up to discuss it with staff because the kitchen 'forgot' more than twice to make it. I don't know if it was because the kitchen staff thought making soup was below their Michelin star status but either was it was all dealt with in the wrong way. To top it all off I don't believe he received any form of counselling whatsoever for his suicidal thoughts and depression and was just left in there to magically get better. Forgive me if I'm wrong but to me the whole point of going to a mental health hospital is to get help from qualified professionals...... Despite my rant there was one good staff member there who i thanked personally for helping my dad but in all I wouldn't recommend anyone stay there and I can completely understand why Lynfield Mount has such a bad reputation.