What’s Wrong With Victoria’s Mental health system a honest patient perspective
So as a psychiatric patient in Victoria, I would be in a very dire situation if not for having private health insurance coverage that I have held since I was about 18 years old. Prior to being 18 and I was subjected to Victoria’s atrocity of a public system where unless your dying, having a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder was practically a death sentence.
Sounds over dramatic I know, but when you get told by the head psychiatrist of Maroondah hospital that the guidelines state they can only hold your for 24-48hrs and then send you home when you are still in a crisis? Same with Box Hill Adolescent inpatient unit. Where is the duty of care? Not to mention a particular psychologist in public who ignored my request for a bed in hospital when I was struggling and had told him of a certain ‘plan’ I had intended and he told me “I was just trying to manipulate him” what for? A cruddy prison cell styled hospital bed at Maroondah IPU1 or 2? What’s there for me to gain other than just staying alive? And nothing has changed much to this day and that was over 10 years ago. The only public health service for personality disorders is Spectrum which has a very long waitlist and the treatment in public is very similar from word of mouth I got out of public asap after than and after I nearly died that fateful night due to that psychologists lack of care or taking me seriously. Next is something simple as being unable to smoke on site at public despite the statistics saying those of us with mental illness are the highest population that smoke and quitting smoking is very stressful, and when your going into hospital due to extreme crisis and stress you don’t want to be withdrawing from smoking at the same time. Now in a private hospital don’t get me wrong they still have their issues but at least you can stay for a minimum of 3 weeks at a time under your doctors care, even if you don’t have a doctor if you have private health coverage usually a doctor will take you on, but if you have complex mental health or a cluster B personality disorder this is still a struggle due to extreme stigma. I have been turned away by not only the CATT (crisis and assessment team) honestly if you have BPD they do nothing anyway, but some of Victoria’s major hospitals during some major crisis in my life during the pandemic including St Vincent’s and Epworth for reasons such as trying to unalive myself and I still got told i couldn’t be given a bed in emergency because I had BPD, and despite being brought in by police I still wasn’t taken seriously, if not for family that were then put in the position to drive me around all night with the child lock on until I fell asleep, things could be different.
This type of treatment can force patients like myself to take more extreme measures to try and get the care we need like self injury, overdose or simply not bother to call the ambulance because Victoria’s mental health system for those of us who are complex it has no concern or time or care factor in an emergency in my opinion partially because the system does not pay doctors more to treat someone complex who is more work and time than it does who is not complex. The nurses do their best and are often like unofficial mothers fathers and friends they set boundaries when the need to and are empathetic when they need to so are fantastic and partially though some need to change jobs and have been there far too long and can become bitter and stop caring.
My Psychiatrist and Neuropsychologist for both I have no words to describe the lengths they have both gone to for me over the years I would not still be here or be me without them both, who have in their own unique ways hearts of gold to the gratitude I could never truly express. As doctors they always believed in me and reminded me that I was first a person and not my illness. But one thing I have developed over the years of being a patient in the system is a great level of resilience and ability to bounce back and get through anything. But a combination of my art, my treating doctors and a support network of peers who are all going through similar issues who I know if I called out of the blue in a crisis or for a chat for drop what they are doing and listen and gradually they have become my family, my brothers and my sisters and now my soon to be husband, but that’s a story for another blog…..just from different mothers and fathers but we all share a unique bond and understanding that I have never found in any other friendships anywhere else
We are the frequent flyers, the complex, the unique and different, the misunderstood, the traumatised and broken but we get up and help each other up in a way I’ve never seen happen anywhere else in society or my life before, I’ve never met a group of people over the years before that have given me such hope and turned the light on in the darkest hours so thank you to all the patients that are now my family we were broken and the system for many of us broke us more but we helped each other up and have sort of created our own unique support system between the lot of us that they consider ‘treatment resistant” in other words they can’t be bothered putting in the energy to treat us half the time with basic respect and decency so we do for each other but it shouldn’t be this way where you can rely on your friends more than your doctor. But again welcome to Victoria’s mental health system.
