Mental health services

I was involved in this a week ago , my upstairs neighbour ..we are in a flat..rang me at 3.30am in a state could I go to her she was feeling suicidal,slashing her arms, and had been drinking, this has happened on several occasions before, she is known to the MH team, the drink happens when she has an emotional upset, as she had that day previously, samaritans told her to have a cup of tea, ambulance triage, that she had called for help rang back whilst I was there, gave me the crisis number,which was wrong so rang another,whilst trying to deal with a highly agitated person,eventually got through to correct team, who passed the buck and told me to get GP appointment when surgery opened at 8,I am not trained to deal with this ,I answered a call for help not knowing wether she had overdosed on her meds she has,I eventually got her calm and into bed to sleep, fortunately her elderly mum came later in the day to take her back with her and after a week away she has returned.

I didn't see the programme Luckygirl but I share the views expressed here.
Care in the Community is better for some people than long term incarcerations but only if it is well resourced. It's more, not less expensive than it was to keep those old institutions functioning.
There are times when residential care of some kind is needed. I despair that public services are being run down to the point of uselessness. Is it a concerted effort to convince us all the public is bad and private is good? If so who will foot the bill for those who need wrap round care.
grannyactivist sums it up well. It's the same in other branches of social/health care - it's impossible to continue to cut cut and slash some more the budgets and expect the services to meet increasingly complex needs.

There is a note on my file so that when the local crisis team bring it up they can see it. The note says that if I have contacted them it means I am in immediate danger and they should not suggest I 'take a bath', 'have a nap', 'read a book', 'make a cup of tea' or any other distraction activities. This doesn't always work. Sometimes they're just so busy they can't do anything else but offer platitudes and distraction advice.

The worst thing though is when you get the answerphone. You're desperate to talk to someone and all you get is a machine.

I agree about the uselessness in general of Crisis Teams, but in fairness I have to say that they are in a crisis too. Experienced mental health workers are now, in the main, a thing of the past; burnt out and with ever depleted resources many of them have left at the point of needing to become service users themselves. Less experienced staff are struggling with fewer resources and increased bureaucracy at a time when more patients are presenting with extremely complex needs and Mental Health posts are left unfilled for months and sometimes years. Those who go into the profession these days do so knowing that they are joining the poor relation of the health service.
As someone who interacts with mental health professionals regularly I admit that even knowing all of the above doesn't stop me from becoming beyond frustrated and angry with the system and some of the MH professionals I meet. However, in my calmer moments I do acknowledge that if the system is broken (and it most certainly is) then I perhaps should be more sympathetic to the stresses and strains of those who are working in it.
(The latter said through gritted teeth!)

In th seventies I was treated in a mental hospital, it was the start of changes. The hospital I was in was the asylum of horror films, very large grey building, grave yard in the ground , not in use. A separate building was erected away from the grey building, just two wards, male and female , the women being treated were for various reasons, a mother of a child who was autistic, she was exhausted, a lady in her eighties who had been widowed after sixty years of marriage, no children, no siblings, grief stricken and frightened . A young girl who was had been over protected by parents, when her father died her mother took her to the cemetry every night to say good night to him, the mother died and the girl was damaged, I had an eating disorder and grief. The grey building had the lock up wards, frightening to walk past. We need hospitals like the wing I was in, the hospital closed under thatcher and we had care in the community , it didn't work for everyone. We know have a wing in an old to hospital, two wards like I was in but far more people in need of beds there. When we had the old hospital suicide was quite rare apart from farmers who shot thrmselves, in recent years we have had many, the river being the place of choice. When we had the drop in centre I held a night emergency call line should one of our visitors need to talk if desperate. Now closed they only have Sams to ring.

Sorry, you just said that! I only noticed when I read your post through a second time.

On the other hand perhaps getting rid of the ‘asylums’ was a bad idea.