Decline of services

My local psyche ward...sigh
In 1975, I was put into my local psyche ward. The ward was a very healing environment. I felt safe there. The patients were pretty decent, and the Psyche nurses were very good. They had the time to come out and talk to the patients, shoot pool with them, and just chat. That was 1975.
Fast forward to the end of 2004. I ended up in the same psyche ward. It was very shabby. The pool table was in horrible shape, just a table held up by 4 legs. The one room where we went in 1975 in order to find even more peace was sadly no more. It was now used as an educational facility for shrinks; a place where they could go and pat themselves on the back on what good they're doing for society.
And the staff. They had more staff on in 2004 than in 1975. But they were so busy with paper work. That's all they did was paper work. They didn't come out and talk to you. And they really didn't care. Also the food was worse than it was before. Eventually, they had to throw money at the problem. They added an addition, for more beds. But if their attitude has not changed, then all is for naught.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) there has been increasing pressure for the psych world to prove how they are helping people. They want evidence and outcomes. While from an anti-psych point of view this is a very good thing, the other side of it is that it often requires extensive paperwork to prove what they are doing and this causes less interaction with the people. It's a double edge sword so to speak.

Roger1234 wrote: But they were so busy with paper work. That's all they did was paper work.

One time in the hospital I was on an I.V and it ran out so I wheeled the thing up to the nurses station and asked "please make this stop beeping" , six of them were sitting there writing writing writing and more writing and no one answered me so I thought to myself "did I say anything outload or just think it?" I wasn't sure. PLEASE MAKE THIS STOP BEEPING ! and one looked up , that time I knew I said it but then someone startled me from behind and I had a seizure due to benzo withdrawal.

Pre loaded google search for "cost of paperwork in healthcare"
http://www.google.com/search?q=cost+of+paperwork+in+healthcare

Seems that lots of people have written about this.

I've heard nothing but bad stories about psych wards, but the one I went to was pretty good. I went back in June of 2012 (about two years ago from today, actually), and they had a wonderful staff. We got to play Wii, got to do arts and crafts, go to play board games, make puzzles, play instruments, and they even gave us free clothing to keep. They didn't force me to do anything. They gave me my medication, and I willingly took it, so that might be why. I didn't take a shower the whole eight days I was there. That's part of my illness I think, or maybe I just don't care about my personal hygiene. We had a schedule we followed every day, and it was a nice one too. We had group therapy, group motivational speeches, group check ups, and a bunch of other things. We had top of the line food made for us, we had cereal and soda whenever we wished, and we even had television and movies and music to do and all sorts of stuff. It was one of the best times of my life. But even while I was in there, we had people saying "I've been to about five different psych wards, and they've all been complete Hell. This is by far the best one". So maybe I got lucky.

PATIENTS BEFORE PAPERWORK

Responsible department: Department of Health

A Nurse within the NHS has set up this e-petition.

We want to highlight to the government that nurses are willing and dedicated and will fight for their job in a time of change.

The need for change comes when nurses are consumed by unnecessary, repetitive paperwork; paperwork takes staff away from patients.

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