What do you think would IMPROVE psych hospitals?

So I've been hospitalized 4 times in my life (twice at 16 and twice recently as an adult). I, like most people I've talked to, have NEVER found these facilities helpful and instead feel like they often ignore patient concerns, talk down to you, spend little to no time explaining your meds / potential side effects and generally just DON'T CARE about the patients' well-being.

Two of these hospitals had the nastiest psychiatrists I've ever had the displeasure of meeting- doctors who were mean to the patients AND staff which was just bizarre. And even the doctors who were nice enough people would just order new meds without telling you ANYTHING, and spend like a maximum of 10 minutes with you.

Of course there are exceptions and I have had a few nice nurses or social workers talk to me when they saw me upset, and who I felt like actually gave a s*** about their patients, and I do realize that psych wards are 1000x better than they used to be. But overall, these places seem to be full of people who view it as just another job and the patients as a burden.

This young girl was so frustrated by her treatment at the last hospital I was in that she tried to call a patient advocate but they didn't call back. She felt like she was having a reaction to her meds and that no one was listening...

I suppose the most obvious way to improve psych wards would be to increase funding that is so often cut by our legislators. But other than that (since that's unlikely to change anytime soon), what do you guys think could be done to actually improve these places?

The seclusion room is not a staff member. If you send someone to seclusion because you can't [won't] spare one person to stay with them, the patient is not the problem: the staff-to-patient ratio is.

Better doctors. I just got out of Sheppard Pratt and had a decent doctor for once.

Doctors that listen to you , not the ones that over medicate you .

I think having a room with exercise equipment, like treadmills and exercise bikes, would be good. Exercise is such a wonderful tool to use, and yet so few people use it. In the hospital I go to, there is only one exercise bike, and in one TV room there is a Wii which provides some movement. There are walking groups and groups where you can go to a gymnasium nearby to play games like basketball/floor hockey. I think these are all good things to have.

I also think groups are important to have as well, like meditation groups, art groups, etc.

Boredom is a huge problem in psych hospitals, which does not pair well with depression and other mental illnesses!

Where to begin...?

Actually having sessions with counselors while in there would help make sure you het on the right meds other than them just spending a couple of minutes with you and pumping you full of crap.

How about nurses who work with the patients. Johns Hopkins had exceptional nurses for the most part. They checked in with you thoroughly every shift. The Dr. and residents there are a completely different story.

I think being able to listen to our own music would be very helpful... Maybe allowing things like iPods and providing wireless headphones.

Hospitals are already expensive as ****, so I'm sure they could afford some cheap wireless headphones for people to use.

I Also feel like having access to a gym would be helpful, especially for those who stay longer than a week.

Having windows that we could open would be nice, too. People need fresh air.

Like all hospitals, this sums it up.

Having a whole lot more psych hospital s so there is competition. As it is now there's not nearly enough beds so no matter how bad a hospital is it will get filled cause there's no choice.

Rotate staff from patient centered to administrative and back again regularly.

I am a firm believer that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In prisons, they are finally not able to ignore it any longer, guards who work in special management units are beginning to be rotated out every two years because there is simply too much data supporting the fact that the longer they are there, the more they dehumanize the inmates and become sadistic. Similar studies show the same situation with police officers. But it doesn't stop there.

Even in the helping professions - places like nursing homes and daycare centers, studies have shown that the higher the average number of employment years of staff, the more complaints both civil and criminal are brought to bear on the company. No one, or at least very, very few people, go to work at either of these places so they can be abusive.

But all of these jobs require people to be in charge of people - and people who tend to be needier than the average person. Caretaker burnout is real. Unless the people working there can disconnect from that stress and still support themselves and their families, that burnout is going to be reflected in their behavior.

I’d relax greatly if this one hospital closed. I think I saw the staff that hit me. At my job. The second I saw her it registered. My first and only thought at the time was “ugh.” Again I haven’t been there in 11 years. It may or may not have been her. But it did look an awful lot like her.

That was a children’s psych hospital until a few years ago. It terrifies me. I don’t think I’ll ever need inpatient again, since it’s been so long. But if you are sent involuntarily can you at least choose the hospital you want to go to?

I know my mom would never send me back there. But I don’t know about the counselor. Do they listen when you tell them you were abused by both the staff and the kids? I mean, those staff regularly told the kids to go after me. I was attacked 4 times by the patients and hit once by the staff.

Personally, my experience would have been better if women had women staff and men had men staff permitted in bedrooms.

If sent involuntarily, you will likely go to the place that has the first open bed. If you want to choose, best to go voluntarily.

I think all workers should have mandatory inpatient one week stay- see what it’s like. Then maybe things would change. When they go back to being a holes they get to go in for two weeks.

There should be long term wards,I do much better in hospital,a lot better and don’t feel safe outside.I am happy with my hospital experiences but I live in Australia where it’s free and I usually stay months.I wish everyday there were cheaper to run long term wards like the old asylums.A lot of schiz don’t last on the outside and end up homeless etc.Id only have more funding for art therapy and art supplies,we had so little funding for that we had to reuse already painted on canvases.

Ugh, a lot of things. I've been hospitalized a total of three times. The first place I went to was good, but the second place, no bueno. I like the one idea that workers should be pretend inmates for a certain period of time. Give some character- and empathy-building time.

Let us go outside! Ffs even prison inmates get to see the sun. I could see the gym equipment being a health hazard, but the last one I wentto had literally nothing in the form of exercise. We could walk around in circles around the nurse's station, that's it.

Music. Maybe have a room or something that has Pandora hooked up to the speakers where you could build a playlist of something other than elevator music.

And most importantly, maybe a couple rooms with one bed. My first hospitalization I couldn't tell up from down, it was 3 am, and I was certain the guy across from me was gonna kill me. He wasn't, I was just in psychosis. But I ended up attacking him. I would've felt much more comfortable in my own room not having to sleep three feet away from someone I didn't know. Would've been safer for him as well, since I was actually the dangerous one.

I have been in one with a gym and that stuff. It was nice. Made up for the crappy docs. (who were taking meds themselves)

I had to go to one like a week ago? They said I couldn't be there. I was out of control and I knew it but because I wasn't sui and didn't want to hurt others and wasn't psychotic I couldn't be there. I argued with them and totally lost my s***. They agreed to keep me only the night. But then refused me my full meds. I take benzos and part of my wack out was withdrawal. They said they don't like to give them and I should go home because I was upsetting ppl and I could take my benzos. They would have furthered the withdrawal withholding them from me the next morning too. I left.
Then they ask Are you safe? Will you be safe? Can you drive?
Like seriously? Why do you care?!

Tonight I had a hard time with control of irritation. A lot of yelling kids over for the weekend. I took propranolol for it (for anger like I'm sposta) but I still couldn't get ahead. I drank wine because I was super angry and didn't care that I was mixing the two. I cared some when I started feeling sick. But it's not like the hospital will actually understand or help. They'll unjustly call me an addict and take my meds.
Right now I'm sposta take my benzos but dunno if I can or should. My head hurts but I know I can't ask anyone without that tool being taken too "for my safety".
They're getting worse here and I think whatever progress has been made will go backwards here where I live because of the added homeless and addiction problems. Ppl are attacking staff. They were really weirded out when I was there.
When I asked that things not be done to me so that we could all be ok , they asked if I would attack them. Then I got really mad and walked away from them and security came over, I guess ready to tackle me if I was a problem. It was scary.
Deny me the meds that keep me chill then blame me for freaking out during forced withdrawal.
Way uncool

I don't have much to complain. It was all free of charge and provided off government taxes I paid early on.

The toilets and bathroom was ****** that I had to be careful to not touch anything in there unless absolutely necessary. It was partly the fault of other patients. I have chosen the squatting pot because the seat comodes were always wet. This was particularly difficult with my ocpd.

There was this one guy who was snoring so loud that I regretted not bringing ear plugs.

There was only one mean doctor who I met at the last day. She was speaking to my mom who came as the guardian. Even though I was voluntary, she was telling my mom that I was not fit to take decisions behalf of myself. The other doctor explained the same to me that I should take time to calm down before taking big decisions.

The food was not my type. I had multigrain bread and cheese wedges as backup. And my friends, mom and sister brought food that was enough.

I was dying for a smoke the whole time.

All other doctors, nurses and other staff was awesome.

There was one exercise machine and lots of board games. TV reception was ******.

We were expected to go outside with the female ward for activities every morning. There was a garden with a pond with fishes in the middle. Most other patients were not much salient or had terrible short term memory. They seemed to be over medicated.

I've been IP 3 times in my life and each time was worse than the one before. The system is hard for me to understand. With all the talk about stopping stigma and discrimination against mental illness the way many people treat those of us with MI seems much worse to me. Being IP is a horrible experience with too many doctors and staff that seem like they should be the ones in the hospital.

1. food. (I don't even think I've ever eaten a proper meal in the ward), just thrown it or left it

2. wait times (I know they can't deal with you directly, but faster times would be nice)

and nicer rooms would be nice

If they wouldn’t treat people solely on their diagnosis. Or wouldn’t treat people differently because they had a different disorder.

I refused to eat for 3 days when I was inpatient when I was a teenager. But because I didn’t have an eating disorder they refused to do anything about it. They said I was just being difficult. A girl with bulimia refused to eat and she was transferred ASAP.

Why would they refuse to do anything for me just because I didn’t have an eating disorder?