Those both sound like how all psych wards should be.

Farmergirl, I am guessing they do not have a lot of staff turnover because it is a good place to work and probably a lot of satifaction from really helping people.

I think I was the only manic person on the ward at the time. It's a small hospital. But pretty old fashioned. The treatment the people got who were a threat to themselves, like a serious threat or to others is a room with no windows except a small one on the door, a cot on the floor, no sheets or blankets, a metal toilet and the door is always locked. Kinda like a jail cell. If the person was severly depressed I suppose they would be safe, but I can't see how that treatment would help depression.

When we had one code red patient come onto the ward they gathered us all in the lunch area and locked the door untill it was "safe" to come out. You can imagine the anxiety that created for the patients. The person did get viloent and damge the walls and ripped the patient phone off the wall. There were many more incidents with this patient. I was really out of my element there.

We had a tv, an old exercise bike and a puzzle on the table in the hall to occupy time. Thats about it, i had so many hours for two weeks to try to fill while being very physically aggitated, I tried the puzzle many times but couldn't sit long enough. Basically you just spent time wandering the hall trying to avoid some of the patients that would try to intimidate you. It wasn't a very healing experience. The staff was nice to me, tho maybe not so nice to some of the other patients. But the staff almost always stayed behind the desk in their office area unless to hand out medication. There were tv moniters and cameras on everyones bed and throughout the ward for safety. And you were not allowed anything that could be used as a weapon. No cell phones or anything like that.