I've been extremely fortunate in my psychiatric hospital stays. But my hospital is a huge teaching and reasearch hospital that is a WHO Centre of Excellence. I was lucky at the time I needed to be admitted the first time back in 07. My psychiatrist at the time was the clinical director of the women's inpatient unit. It was a ward for women only, who were in acute crisis who had trauma and or addiction histories. So I was admitted to that unit almost immediately. I was in there for 7 weeks. And yeah I hear you about the really thing blankets, there must be some universal supplier of crappy blankets for hospitals, but honestly there not much better when you're in for non-psych issues either. In the 7 weeks I was there, there was only 3 code whites on our unit, and out of the 3 incidences restraints were only used once.

The hospital has this whole big initiative that's been going on for the past couple of years on reducing the use of restraints and seclusion, using alternate methods of crisis resolution.

The last time I was in, which was for 4 weeks last summer, it was actually nice. I was in one of the new buildings (The hospital is in the middle of a total redevelopment) that are designed to be as unlike a psych hospital as possible. The unit had 4 floors with 6 beds on each floor. Everyone had a private bedroom and bathroom. We could even lock our doors. Still had the crappy blankets though.

And it's not like this hospital only deals with low risk patients or anything like that - if you're really F'd up in the city you eventually land at this hospital, they just really believe in client centered care.

They actually have a patient empowerment council that is actually listenned to that raises and addresses client's systemic concerns. Patients also sit on the hospital's governing committees. I know because I'm a patient rep on a committee.

I'm just posting this to show that there are good psych hospitals that do get trauma.

If you have a bad hospital experience find out if there's a patient advocate or right's office. Write letters to the CEO. If no one complains the system will never change.

But whoever said that yeah you need someone advocating for you is absolutely right. I'm lucky, I'm white, highly educated, English is my first language, I have a pretty strong understanding of what my patient rights are, a pretty strong understanding of the legal definition of duty of care, and I'm not afraid to raise a fuss to get care. I also know how to work the system. As a result I'm getting top notch care. But I see everyday how people who don't have my advantages, get screwed over by the system that's supposed to help them.

And if you think psych hospitals don't get trauma, you should see the sorry state of rehabs that don't understand or aren't willing to deal with mental illness. It's slowly changing but if you have a concurrent disorder, which also statsitcally means most likely means you have also have a trauma background, you're pretty much SOL for getting proper treatment. That's my pet peeve.

--splitimage